Speechwriter to Hillary Clinton: Lose the text!

You know you’re stiff when speechwriters tell you to ditch the script! But that’s exactly what former President Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau thinks Hillary Clinton ought to do. Echoing, actually, Clinton’s longtime speechwriter Lissa Muscatine’s point at the World Conference of the Professional Speechwriters Association in October, Favreau said on David Axelrod’s new podcast that Clinton is “not a great speech maker,” and far better in forced off-the-cuff situations like debates. “If someone told her, like, just go speak now, she might be better than [with] all the preparation she does, because I think there’s a lot of caution there.”

It’s not bizarre advice, but I’ve just never heard it from a speechwriter—let alone two. —DM