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When a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama addressed the 2004 Democratic Convention, he vaulted onto the national stage through the power and grace of his words. In that speech, he challenged Americans to have “the audacity of hope.” President Obama went on to become one of the greatest political orators of our time.
Obama has had a silent partner in crafting his oratory. In 2006, a novice speechwriter named Cody Keenan joined his team. Keenan wrote alongside Obama for 14 years, rising to become the chief White House speech writer. He continued collaborating with Obama, spending four years helping the former president write his memoir, “A Promised Land.” Keenan now runs a speechwriting and communications firm and teaches a popular undergraduate course on speechwriting at Northwestern University, his alma mater.
Obama’s silent partner is now telling his story. Cody Keenan has a new book, “Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America.” The book focuses on a fraught period in 2015 during which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act, and a white supremacist murdered nine people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Obama delivered the eulogy at the church following the massacre, famously singing Amazing Grace.
The power of Obama’s oratory, Keenan said, is his ability to reach “into the American people and just talking to folks where they are. That’s something too many politicians don’t do.”
Keenan described writing for Obama as “f-ing terrifying.”
“I was never nervous being around the most powerful man in the world,” he said. “I was nervous being around a damn good writer, especially when it’s your job to write for him when he is on record saying I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.”
Obama’s presidency ended with another famous presidential speech, President Donald Trump’s inaugural “American Carnage” address, which laid out a dark vision of crime and white grievance.
“What a way to set the tone for the next four years, not only just with a president who kind of picked at our wounds until they reopened, but then a pandemic that was mismanaged to the point where it killed more than a million Americans,” Keenan said.
“President’s words matter,” Keenan continued. “If you ever need evidence of that, President Trump’s probably your best evidence because his words unleashed something primal … and created a permission structure for political violence — to the point where sitting elected officials are advocating for it. It opened up the floodgates to something like Jan. 6. You had people marching with torches in Charlottesville with their hoods off. All this stuff is only possible because of the president’s words.”