Finding My Voice by Valerie Jarrett

Author:Valerie Jarrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

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From his 2004 keynote in Boston to his rousing “Yes, we can” rally in New Hampshire to his honest and uplifting speech on race in Philadelphia, Barack Obama had found the voice that would enable him to unite people from every background across the nation. Now Michelle had found her voice as well, and together they told the nation a compelling story for which so many people were truly hungry.

With that momentum going into the general election, we felt like it was ours to lose. The primary season had gone on for nearly a year and a half, and Barack had already campaigned throughout most of the country, giving him a strong foothold in many blue and purple states. He had even visited red Idaho, where the president of the state university told me at a five-thousand-person rally on a Saturday morning, “Usually Democratic candidates campaign here by flying over, looking down, and waving.”

By finding their voices, Barack and Michelle had inspired others to use theirs to carry their message. While I had learned to speak up and assert myself in my private and professional lives, speaking in public had never been my forte. I still shake my head when I think back on the first speech I gave as commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development. Elvin Charity was the board chair of Friends of the Chicago River, and he had invited me to address a small group of supporters, so small they fit in a conference room in Elvin’s law firm. The situation couldn’t have been friendlier. The topic of the day was my new department, and since I had created it, what could be easier for me to talk about? But I was so nervous, and my hands sweated so much, that I smudged the ink on my handwritten note cards, so much so that I couldn’t read a word. I made it through, but was reluctant to try it again.

Greg Longhini, my press secretary, whom I tried to fire when I began, thinking there was no need for me to do press, kept pushing me to do more and more interviews with the media and public appearances. After a few bad press stories he convinced me that the only way for me to define my message was for me to be the one who delivered it. And of course he was right. Which is not to say the butterflies in my stomach ever flew away for good. With each new challenge, they return, and speaking on behalf of a presidential candidate was certainly a new and daunting task. But when the campaign called on me to be a surrogate, I had to just push through. I discovered that I was more at ease when I told stories about people I’d met, like Ashley. I began traveling the country independent of Barack or Michelle, and by the general election phase of the campaign, my name recognition and relationship to the Obamas had grown enough nationally that, with hard work by our organizers, I could draw a crowd.

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