The Art of Speechwriting: A Conversation with Presidential Speechwriters

Campaign speeches and presidential communications have distinct goals. While stump speeches are in front of a more friendly crowd, allowing the candidate to promote his or her policy goals, presidential speeches have a wider, more diverse audience that may limit what goals the president can promote. Hear from former presidential speechwriters on how they tackled this issue and what strategies they used to write memorable and historic speeches for former Presidents.
Join the NYU Brademas Center with the 2018 Young Leaders Network series for a dialogue with John P. McConnell, former speechwriter to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and June Shih, former speechwriter to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, as they discuss their experiences of writing historic presidential and campaign speeches. The event will be moderated by Vaughn Hillyard, Political Reporter at NBC News.

[@UserName-mn5rx]

McConnell advises to avoid alliteration, rhyming. Yet Ted Sorensen, the greatest speechwriter ever -- speechwriter for JFK -- loved and used those techniques often for memorability. Some good advice, some meh.

[@kevinhill8131]

An important distinction - he advises to avoid unintended alliteration/rhyming. Deliberately, I think there is very little argument against the usefulness of these devices. But he is definitely right that random alliteration or rhyming can be distracting from the message (worth noting sometimes the line between these being done well or poorly is in the delivery).

[@TheCallToAdventure]

For different times, different styles are required. What is the best advice for today? Answering that will help determine whether McConnell had useful information (in this context).

[@abookhoarder7802]

That lady, and her negative partisan views, is why I have lost all respect for American journalism, and politics in general. As my mom would say, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all", especially if you call yourself a professional. Jeez, this country is a mess. I would say social media has regressed a chunk of our adult population (in particular leadership!?) back to a whiny-cliquey high school mentality, but I won't insult actual teenagers.

[@michaelmcfeely6588]

The use of a speech writer is plagiarism.