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27-Year-Old Jon Favreau Obama's Chief Speechwriter

by Geneva B | January 20, 2009 at 05:08 pm

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It might come as a surprise to some that President Barack Obama's inauguration speech, which is already garnering praise, was co-written by a young man being dubbed a "mind reader" by the President himself.

27-year-old Jon Favreau, who has previously made headlines for some minor hijinx, is garnering attention for his outstanding work for President Obama.

In composing the high notes of the speech, Obama has leant on Favreau, whom he discovered almost by chance four years ago when the younger man was working on John Kerry's failed presidential bid. "Favs" has since studied Obama's speech patterns and cadences with the intensity of a stalker. He memorised the 2004 speech to the Democratic national convention which first brought Obama into the limelight. He is said to carry Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, wherever he goes. As a result, last November when Favreau sat down to write the first draft of the inaugural address, he could conjure up his master's voice as if an accomplished impersonator.
That skill had been put to almost daily use in the 18 months of brutal campaigning on the presidential trail. Favreau would be up most nights until 3am, honing the next day's stump speeches in a caffeine haze of espressos and Red Bull energy drinks, taking breaks to play the video game Rock Band. He coined a phrase for this late-night deadline surfing: "crashing".