Obama’s Speechwriter Jon Favreau is My New Hero!
President-elect Obama’s 27 year old Chief Speechwriter Jon Favreau is my new hero. Partly because, as a fan of words, I quietly envy that he works directly with Obama to craft some of the most historical platitudes ever recorded. But I’ve worked with great writers before- had front row access to speechwriter Richard Cross’ work and will put him up against any scribe- so my fandom goes beyond Favreau’s office. No, I’m hanging my hopes and dreams on Fav, as others call him, because he and the other young technophiles that are converging on the White House and cabinet-level communications positions all over Washington, D.C. are going to provide the rest of the world unparalleled access to the processes, procedures and pressures of the most powerful seat in the world. The MTV-like behind the scenes access will be granted using social media tools like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and good ol’ fashioned text-messaging.
A recent Washington Post article profiled Favreau painting the picture of a hip, political operative who likes to duck into Starbucks’ to draft the President-elects nightly messages. It also showed how accessible he was to close friends during the campaign, like when he fired-off an email on election night before he entered Grant Park to hear Obama speak. In the subject line, Fav wrote, “Dude. We won. Oh my God.” This is just a glimpse of what we’ll get, and I’m giddy with excitement.
Disregard the seemingly impenetrable layers of security clearances that each candidate for the Obama-Biden Administration must hurdle in order to secure a coveted administration appointment. The line-workers that will support the Obama-Biden cabinet members are a group of twenty and thirty-somethings that, at least as generation, have a penchant for oversharing, and no mere national intelligence organization is going to be able to coral this bunch’s goings-on. Favreau’s much talked about Facebook photos are a case in point. A senior colleague of mine recently had breakfast at the White House and he jokingly remarked to me and a few others, “I looked around [the White House] and did not see anyone over 40 years old. This country is being run by a bunch of 20 and 30 year olds.”
For those of us who work in and around the media, we look forward to the inadvertent text message sent from an angry staffer to a close friend who happens to be drunk at a party and willing to share their inbox, or the photo of a tightly wound chief of staff tossing her cookies on the corner of Pennsylvania and 9th St. daisy chaining it’s way by MMS around the globe. Fun times surely are ahead.
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I love it! Gen Y/Millennials are pushing culture forward. Fav is right at the forefront.
Good stuff. I had never heard of this guy. Thanks for the info. Sounds like he’s a major component in ths Obama movement
This is the kind of behavior you’d expect from a drunken frat boy. But Mr. Favreau is not a boy. He’s a grown man charged with the responsibility of expressing the highest ideals and beliefs of our next president.
If Favreau was working in any corporation, and posted pictures of himself gleefully groping the image of a female colleague, he would lose his job. It’s sexual harassment.
Favreau’s behavior devalues and disrespects our incoming Secretary of State. His jubilant portrayal of sexual assault should immediately result in his removal from his position in the new administration. He should be fired. How would you feel if this was your mother, sister, Michelle Obama, Obama’s daughters or others? It’s just plain wrong.
Favreau should be fired now.
Bill-
Appreciate you stopping through here. I totally get your sentiments, and had this occurrence been in a corporate setting Fav would be gone…unless he was the Chairman’s son. In this case, it’s along those lines. He’s Obama’s “favorite son” and a probably semi-contrite apology to Barack and Hilary did the trick here.
Having worked in and around Washington politics, I’m sure that advisors on both sides advised the teams to not pick this as battle to fight. Of all the pressing issues this nation faces, surely they did not want this one to be the one attached to the Obama-Biden Administration. So typical of Washington, these things, whether right or wrong, have a way of being pushed aside.
My focus here was to demonstrate that social media and PR are going to give us all insight into more behaviors like Fav’s as well as some of the good decision making that happens.