Richard Wolffe's new book, Renegade, about the Obama campaign details the origins of the speech that convinced me to endorse and support his candidacy:
The revamped stump speech Obama gave to Iowa Democrats at their Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in November of 2007 was borne out of a speech Obama scribe Jon Favreau had written for the candidate earlier that month in South Carolina.
Favreau trimmed the original version and sent it to Obama who had to memorize it for what became a pivotal moment leading up to the Iowa caucuses.
Aides were concerned that Obama was not prepared to give the speech, but he largely got it right on his first run-through a day before the dinner.
“None of Obama’s aides knew that the candidate had been rehearsing in his Des Moines hotel room all week,” Wolffe writes. [Press secretary Robert] Gibbs had walked by his room a couple of times, heard a loud television behind the door, and wondered what was going on. Obama had turned the volume up to practice the speech to himself, out of sight and earshot of even his closest staff.”
The speech: