There was no “education writer” or “jobs writer.” Still, each member of the team had a niche. Favs held the pen on major economic and political addresses. His deputy, Adam Frankel, handled civil rights. Cody Keenan (who became deputy once Adam left) took tragedies and the middle class; if it belonged in a Springsteen album, Cody was on it. Along with jokes, Jon Lovett was responsible for all things science and technology. Ben Rhodes and Terry Szuplat handled foreign policy. Kyle O’Connor, the youngest POTUS speechwriter, took whatever everyone else didn’t want.
I took whatever Kyle didn’t want. This meant I was not exactly writing for the history books. A brief ode to Puerto Rico. A shout-out to some longtime Chicago friend. A few kind words for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. But if my remarks weren’t destined for greatness, they did help me learn President Obama’s verbal tics. When delivering praise, for example, he avoided good and great, preferring synonyms that were ever-so-slightly formal.
“Our fantastic attorney general, Eric Holder, is in the house.”
“I want to thank Congresswoman Chu for her outstanding work on this issue.”
“Senator Klobuchar is doing a tremendous job.”
He had other preferences as well. Some speakers subscribe to an old bit of wisdom: “Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em, then tell ’em, then tell ’em what you told ’em.” But President Obama was more lawyerly than folksy. He preferred to make one argument start to finish, to tell a single story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Then there were the ad-libs. Unlike Vice President Biden, who regularly gave his teleprompter operator a heart attack, POTUS didn’t often go off script. Occasionally, however, he’d cock his head slightly to the side and pause. It happened so quickly I think only the speechwriters noticed. But if you knew what to look for, you could see a dialogue play out in his head.
You know, this line isn’t cutting it. I bet I could come up with something better.
Are you sure? Maybe the speechwriter knows something you don’t?
He’s how old? Twenty-five? Seems unlikely.
Then the president would deliver something on the fly and, nine times out of ten, the crowd would break into applause. More than any other speaker I’ve seen, President Obama thrived on this enthusiasm. On the rare occasions he didn’t receive it, it reminded me of one of my bad OkCupid dates: POTUS and the crowd, going through the motions, trapped in a downward spiral of disinterest. When the speech finally ended, he would give a short, stoic nod, the kind that says, “Well, moving on.”
But other times, right after his remarks were finished, President Obama would give the podium a satisfied little thump with his right hand. This was his way of declaring victory, a quiet but unmistakable “nailed it.” These were the speeches where the crowds started off cheering, and the cheering only grew as the remarks went on. When the audience was with him, POTUS found a gear no other speaker could match.
That’s why, if my OkCupid profile had included the question, “What’s the most important thing about remarks for President Obama?” I would have said this: Write long sentences. Most speakers can’t handle them. They need to keep things tight. Otherwise they get lost. But Barack Obama could control a run-on sentence the way a sports car makes turns at speed, emphasizing, pausing, finding beats within the words and phrases not because of the punctuation but thanks to his innate talent as an orator, his voice rising and falling and carrying you along with it, so that by the time he reached his final crescendo you felt bigger than yourself, and better than yourself, and part of and proud of and lucky to be alive in the greatest country on earth.
POTUS speeches were fun.
They were also, in theory at least, the best way for the president to influence the public he served. One of the most important moments in the 2008 campaign had come during the primaries, after ABC News uncovered video of Obama’s pastor making racially charged remarks. The candidate’s response to the scandal? A sober, thoughtful, thirty-eight-minute address. The remarks were titled “A More Perfect Union,” but were soon known as “The Race Speech.” Their resounding success set the bar for every bit of rhetoric that followed. In White House meetings, it even became a running joke.
“We need a race speech for Greek Independence Day.”
“We need a race speech for congratulating the winner of the Stanley Cup.”
But beneath the sarcasm lay a growing sense of insecurity. More than ever, it seemed that even the most well-crafted presidential address was powerless to change America’s course.
GRIDLOCK. THAT WAS THE SHORTHAND REPORTERS USED. BUT IT wasn’t quite right. Gridlock is an accident, an inconvenience. What happened on Capitol Hill was a strategy, and its architect was Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell.
McConnell’s tactics were informed by a pair of brilliant, if somewhat evil, insights. The first was that Americans hold their president almost entirely responsible for the performance of the government as a whole. Under his direction, Republicans in Congress behaved like offensive linemen hoping to get their quarterback fired. They knew failing to do their jobs would make them look bad. But they also knew POTUS would take the hit. No matter who caused the loss, Obama’s name would wind up with an L beside it.
McConnell’s second insight was that, if he was shameless enough for long enough, he would never get the comeuppance he deserved. Some political reporters slant left, others right, but what unites them is the desire to break new stories. Kick a puppy live on camera, and everyone will cover it. Kick a puppy per day, and steadfastly refuse to apologize, and within two weeks the press moves on.
This is what happened, metaphorically at least, in the fall of 2011. Republicans voted in lockstep against funding for teachers, cops, firefighters, and laid-off construction workers. These were causes that once inspired compromise. Everyone was shocked to see lawmakers from either party oppose them. But the surprise wore off. With frightening speed, obstruction became the new normal. Reporters might as well have written about the sun rising in the east.
I found this demoralizing, and I don’t think I was alone. In one set of POTUS remarks, I wrote that a frustrating thing about being president was not being allowed outside to take a walk. It was a throwaway line, a setup to an opening joke. But when I got the draft back from the Oval, President Obama’s only edit had been to add to my list.
“To clear your head,” he wrote. “Or jump into a car just to take a drive.” At times like these, faced with an ever-growing litany of frustrations, I found myself wondering if presidential speeches were nothing more than window dressing. Really. What was the point?
And then, in December 2011, POTUS addressed the URJ.
In the weeks before President Obama spoke at the Union of Reform Judaism’s biannual conference, Jarrod Bernstein, OPE’s Jewish liaison, laid out the challenge we faced. In 2008, the Jewish community had overwhelmingly supported the president. Now, however, doubt was spreading. A tall, brash New Yorker, Jarrod summarized our objective with a Yiddishism.