I tell the president to start speeches in the most organic way possible. You wouldn’t start a conversation by saying ‘As John F. Kennedy once said…’, so you shouldn’t start a speech that way either. It’s good to put in jokes that are really funny but not ‘appropriate’ for a politician to tell. The personal stories that work tell people why you do the things you do. If you’re telling a personal story make it authentic – talk about tough times. What might seem like a good needling of the opposition on paper sounds a bit harsher in reality and you won’t get the applause. So a little goes a … Continue reading Jon Favreau