A decade and a half ago, Cody Keenan’s political career began in a mailroom.
It was during an internship in the late Ted Kennedy’s office, which Keenan describes as his “best political learning experience.”
“You come in [as] that kid — I was a 21-year-old, with romantic notions that politics is power and you’re having fancy lunches and important things,” Keenan says. “You quickly realize not only is that not true, it’s actually far more important than that.”
It was there, holed away in a windowless room opening envelopes and reading letters from “real people with real problems,” that Keenan says he was able to move away from the theoretical game of politics and into the real world.
In a loosely structured Friday speech, which was largely a question-and-answer session with the audience at UW-Madison, Keenan touched on a wide variety of topics, ranging from his favorite historical presidential speech to forward-looking advice for students (he says to just dive into the political world, like he did).
After he finished his internship, Keenan went to Harvard University for his master’s in public policy. While at school, Keenan had a phone interview in 2008 with Jon Favreau about joining then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s speech writing team.
Keenan accepted the offer, which was his first-ever speech writing job. He later rose to director of speechwriting for the Obama administration. Keenan says Obama loves writing — and even today, Obama often reminds him that he wrote his now-famous 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention by himself.
He still works for Obama, shifting now from speechwriting to helping with the president’s upcoming book. The two of them are still struggling with when to engage with current political issues.
Tradition has shown that past presidents typically don’t remain active in this way, Keenan says, offering the example of George W. Bush. Keenan says the former Republican president “didn’t say a bad word about [the Obama administration] for eight years,” even after they hit him hard on the campaign trail.
“In a pure, perfect world, Barack Obama wouldn’t say anything for eight years,” Keenan says. “But this is different.”
Obama, who Keenan says “believes in democratic norms [and] reveres the office,” has issued several statements after particularly controversial moves by President Donald Trump. Ten days after Obama left the White House, he spoke out against Trump’s immigration ban.
More recently, Obama issued a statement on Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the widely popular program initiated by Obama and commonly referred to as DACA.
But they’re still attempting to be selective on what they speak out about, Keenan says, explaining it can be difficult for them to tell “when Trump has gone too far.”
“We try to be choosy about it, because he can’t run for office again and there need to be other voices in the Democratic party to step up and say these arguments,” Keenan says. “I know how tempting it is to want to hear from [Obama] every day, but that’s not going to help us in 2020.”
Throughout Obama’s presidency, Keenan says the “best and biggest speeches” his team wrote were the ones about the idea of America and “how you define patriotism, how you define a country that’s big and inclusive and aim it toward the future.” But they didn’t necessarily have the landmark speeches previous presidents did.
Obama gave many speeches that focused on the theme of democracy, and how it’s only as strong as those upholding it. Keenan says his favorite historical speeches have been the ones that changed the course of the nation.
In particular, Keenan pointed to the late John F. Kennedy’s address at Rice University, where the former president said they would put a man on the moon within a decade. Keenan says that was “a preposterous thing to say.”
“We didn’t have a space program — there was no NASA. The idea that we’re going to build a spaceship and go to the moon in less than 10 years is insane,” Keenan says. “And we did. It’s amazing. We don’t get that kind of speechmaking anymore.”
If the Obama days were thin on these type of speeches, which Keenan described as “unabashedly audacious and hopeful and optimistic,” he doesn’t see a lot of hope today. Keenan says the closest the administration came to a moonshot was Obama’s wish to solve climate change, but the Trump administration has moved in the opposite direction on that issue. If Keenan and Obama couldn’t bring back the halcyon days of speechmaking, they may be gone for good.
