Re: JFK's Speechwriter Now Putting Words Into Obama Campaign
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:If you wonder why Barack Obama's speeches remind you of the speeches of John and Robert Kennedy, it's because their speech writer, Ted Sorenson, is writing Obama's speeches. ---BBB
JFK's Speechwriter Now Putting Words Into Obama Campaign
Written by: Doug G. Ware
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Last Update: 2/09/08
Theodore C. Sorensen, Special Counsel and primary speechwriter to U.S. President John F. Kennedy. (Abbie Rowe - National Park Service)
"He is more like John F. Kennedy than any other candidate of our time" - Ted Sorenson, adviser to JFK, about Barack Obama NEW YORK CITY - The man who actually hand-wrote some of the most popular and historic words ever heard from the White House is now lending his creativity and support to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorenson was Pres. John F. Kennedy's speechwriter in the early 1960s. He wrote some of Kennedy's most-remembered speeches and conducted some of the Administration's most critical business -- that sometimes went far beyond the realistic expectations of a mere wordsmith.
In fact, some historians say Sorenson's talents saved the world from nuclear destruction.
Sorenson, who turns 80 in May, has long been retired from actual speechwriting but he now feels compelled to lend creative service to who he feels is the country's best option right now: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
"I endorsed Barack Obama for president... because he is more like John F. Kennedy than any other candidate of our time," Sorensen said recently.
He also noted similarities between Kennedy and Obama, like how both canddiates were called "too young" and "inexperienced." Sorenson also makes mention of the social challenges both candidates had to face; Kennedy being a Roman Catholic and Obama being an Afro-American.
"The times are too important. We have got to have someone with judgment leading this country," he said. "I'm supporting Obama because I believe he has that same spirit, that same desire to call to public service... especially the young people, but all the citizens to live up to their obligations." (Watch video of Sorenson endorsing Obama)
Sorenson graduated from the University of Nebraska and immediately went to work for John Kennedy. By the time the Massachusetts senator became president in 1960, Sorenson was penning his speeches -- including the famed words on inauguration day 1961 that urged Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you... ask what you can do for your country."
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shares a laugh with reporters during a flight from St. Louis to Wilmington, Del., Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
According to reports, Sorenson has now become close with the young speechwriters in Obama's camp -- and has occasionally thrown in a creative phrase or a clever one-liner to be used during one of the senator's future exhortations. In addition, Sorensen is said to be giving advice and support to the Obama campaign.
It would almost be unthinkable for Obama to refuse the offering, too. Sorenson's acts during 13 days in October 1962 are believed, by some, to have saved the world from nuclear annihilation.
In addition to being JFK's primary speechwriter, Sorensen also served as Special Counsel and Adviser to the president -- meaning he weilded significant influence when it came to matters, foreign and domestic. The foreign part was put to use at the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis on Oct. 14, 1962.
President Kennedy and Sorensen drafted communications to be sent to the Soviet Union with hopes of striking a deal to stop the crisis. Soviet ships carrying nuclear warheads were bound for Cuba -- less than 100 miles from the U.S. cost -- while other missiles were already being put together on the island.
At one point during the crisis, Sorensen even met with a carrier for the KGB on a Washington, D.C. street, where he exchanged a newspaper that contained an important message for the president.
In the film Thirteen Days (2000), a retelling of the crisis, Sorenson is played by actor Tim Kelleher and is portrayed as a crafty speechwriter that, accurately, contributed greatly to the situation.
Obama's campaign can certainly use Sorenson's proven skills as many polls indicate that he lacks Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. However, the two are neck-and-neck in the amount of delegates they have secured so far; 832 to 821 for Clinton and Obama, respectively.
2,025 delegates are needed for the official nomination.
The speech lit a fire. Meet Obama's editor.
By Richard Wolffe
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 7:22 PM ET Jan 6, 2008
Jon Favreau has the worst and the best job in political speechwriting. His boss is a best-selling author who doesn't really need his help, having written the 2004 speech that catapulted him onto the national stage. At the same time, the same boss also happens to be capable of delivering a speech in ways that can give his audience the goosebumps.
But Barack Obama is more than a little busy campaigning across Iowa and New Hampshire right now. So it was Favreau who led the team that wrote Obama's victory speech in Des Moines last week?-a moment that prompted the TV pundits to drop months of skepticism about Obama's candidacy to make breathless comparisons with the Kennedy era.
For Favreau, a 26-year-old jean-clad staffer (who is no relation to the comedian of "Swingers" fame) who worked in Obama's senate office, the contrast with the 2004 election could not be starker.
Back then Jon Favreau had one of the worst jobs on the Kerry campaign. He was the kid who put together "the audio clips"?-the bundle of overnight stories that helped the campaign's senior staff get up to speed on the latest radio news. A graduate of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., he had interned in Kerry's senate office and joined the campaign right out of college.
When Kerry's campaign showed signs of imploding?-before recovering again in Iowa?-Favreau was one of the few people left in the office when they needed a new speechwriter. "They couldn't afford to hire one," he recalled. "And they couldn't find anyone who wanted to come in when we were about to lose to Dean. So I became deputy speechwriter, even though I had no previous experience."
When Kerry lost in 2004, Favreau thought he was finished with politics. "After the Kerry campaign, after all the backbiting and nastiness, my idealism and enthusiasm for politics was crushed," he said. "I was grateful for the experience I got, but it was such a difficult
experience, along with losing, that I was done. It took Barack to rekindle that."
Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, called Favreau after Kerry's defeat and asked him to talk to the newly installed senator. "We're looking for a speechwriter," Gibbs told Favreau.
"Why?" asked Favreau.
"If there were 48 hours in a day, we wouldn't need a speechwriter," Gibbs said. "But he needs to work with someone."
Favreau met with Obama and Gibbs in the Senate cafeteria in the Dirksen office building on Capitol Hill on the senator's first day in his new job. Obama didn't want to know about Favreau's résumé, but he did want to know about his motivation.
"What got you into politics, what got you interested?" he asked.
Favreau told him about the social service project he started in Worcester, defending the legal rights of welfare recipients as the state tried to move people off the rolls and into work.
"What is your theory of speechwriting?" Obama asked.
"I have no theory," admitted Favreau. "But when I saw you at the convention, you basically told a story about your life from beginning to end, and it was a story that fit with the larger American narrative. People applauded not because you wrote an applause line but because you touched something in the party and the country that people had not touched before. Democrats haven't had that in a long time."
The pitch worked. Favreau and Obama rapidly found a relatively direct way to work with each other. "What I do is to sit with him for half an hour," Favreau explains. "He talks and I type everything he says. I reshape it, I write. He writes, he reshapes it. That's how we get a
finished product.
"It's a great way to write speeches. A lot of times, you write something, you hand it in, it gets hacked by advisers, it gets to the candidate and then it gets sent back to you. This is a much more intimate way to work."
Some speeches are much more the product of the candidate himself. Obama e-mailed Favreau his draft of his announcement speech in Springfield, Ill., at 4 a.m. on the morning of the campaign launch last February.
Now Favreau has his own team: Adam Frankel, a 26-year-old who worked with Ted Sorensen on his memoirs, and Ben Rhodes, a 30-year-old who worked with Lee Hamilton on the 9/11 commission's report.
Together they had just three weeks to work on Obama's game-changing speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa and even less time to work on Obama's victory speech last week. Weaving together lines from previous speeches?-and even Obama's books?-the team now knows the themes and language that reflect the candidate's voice.
"Even if we had finished third, we would go on to New Hampshire," says Favreau of the victory speech plan. "I had a winning and a keep-fighting speech, but in the end they weren't that different. The message out of Iowa was one of unity and reaching out across party lines. We knew we were going to do well with independents, young people and first-time voters. We knew the message was similar to what he said at the 2004 convention."
The result was a speech with a light touch on the most striking point about Obama's victory: the historic nature of a black candidate's win in the almost entirely white state of Iowa. "The first line was simply, 'They said this day would never come'," says Favreau. "Even when we do speeches to African-American crowds, it's hinted at and it's understood. It's not hammered over the head."
So how hard is it to write for someone who has written his own books and speeches to critical acclaim? "People say that, but it's actually a dream come true," says Favreau. "You always hope that the person can match the lofty moment that the writer dreams up. To have someone who can do that makes it a joy to work with him."
Sensing the hype, Favreau catches himself quickly. "I looked at the Edwards people in 2004 and thought they were such Kool-Aid drinkers. Now I'm one of them myself."
URL:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/84756
How many speech writers does Obama have and does he ever write his own speeches?
