A Valedictorian’s New Address

In 2003, Jon Favreau spoke to an audience of hundreds on Fitton Field. Today, as chief speechwriter in the White House, his words reach billions.

 

By John Marchese

 

Those traits would seem to deserve top billing on his current job description. After the Kerry presidential campaign failed, Favreau says he went through a difficult evaluation of his life plan.

“It was very jading—the Kerry campaign,” he says. “By the end, there was so much infighting, backstabbing. And I was thinking: ‘This system does not work.’” Then he was offered a chance to join the staff of the incoming senator from Illinois.

“When I got into the Obama [Senate] office I didn’t think he’d run for president,” Favreau remembers. “I didn’t want to work on another campaign. I was thinking that I would stay there until the next election and then go to law school.” (Favreau had deferred taking a prestigious Truman Fellowship after graduation.)

“I’d learned that campaigns take so much of your life,” he continues, “your sanity, your relationships, all that kind of stuff. But with Obama, when he decided to run for president, I said, ‘I’m going to take a shot on this guy.’ I knew how hard it would be, but it seemed worth it.”

The commitment meant that Favreau would spend nearly two years living in a group house near Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters, writing memorable speech after memorable speech (sometimes in late night sessions fueled by coffee and Red Bull). The work load included crafting a Democratic party convention address, which he says, “nearly killed me”—not least because deadline pressures forced Favreau, a frightened flyer, to write much of it while aboard a hop-scotching Obama campaign plane.

But, of course, it all paid off. Now, settled back in Washington in a newly purchased apartment near DuPont Circle, Favreau has a job that he says “gives me an opportunity to help in a way that’s fulfilling to me.”

Now that he is establishing a work routine at the White House, Favreau has even had a little time to get in touch with some of his college classmates who have also landed in Washington.

“I saw a bunch of Holy Cross kids last weekend,” he reports on this night in the midst of March Madness. “We got together to watch the Holy Cross-American game at a place called Buffalo Billiards up the street.  There’s a good crew of Holy Cross people down here.”

To current students who have their own West Wing dreams, Favreau says: “Find a campaign and volunteer. Do an internship for little or no pay. Try to channel yourself into an area that interests you, because you can move up really fast. If you’re good, people will notice you. It really is a meritocracy.”