The four best speeches of Barack Obama

As the political campaign for 2016 heats up, we’re nearing the end of the Obama era.

Today I wanted to write about a different topic. More design pieces are coming soon…

We’re nearing the end of the Obama era as the political campaign for 2016 heats up.

In the last few days, I’ve thought deeply about roughly two dozen Obama speeches I’ve either listened to or read over the last nine years. These include Obama at the UN General Assembly meetings, Obama’s State of the Union addresses, remarks after the disastrous roll-out of Healthcare.gov, his first inauguration speech, foreign policy speech on the Arab world in Cairo and so on.

Against to the last two Presidents, how does Obama compare?

Bill Clinton was famous for his empathy (“I feel your pain”…); George W Bush for his rabble rousing enthusiasm (“Those who did this…are going to hear us too”).

I once had a roommate who had attended a dinner gala with Bill Clinton and other guests, and she told me when Clinton spoke to you, he made you feel like you were worth a million dollars.

I’ve heard George W Bush speak in person twice (once in 2005 and again in 2011). He is extremely gregarious — the kind of person you’d want at a BBQ because you know he’d entertain all the guests.

Obama is a lawyer and an academic by trade, a professor of constitutional law. I think it’s why a lot of Americans don’t like him — they find him to be distant and aloof. Lawyers, more often than not, are pedantic and not empathetic.

Lawyers, and Obama is one of them, are often pedantic and not empathetic.

When Obama discusses foreign policy, healthcare or the economy, he is tepid and unconvincing.

He’s not the eloquent speaker people often assume. He doesn’t speak from the heart.

Obama’s great speeches happen when he draws upon his intensely rich personal experience or he talks about the thing he’s truly passionate about — the institution of democracy. It’s in these moments he shines as a great orator.

Obama’s great speeches happen when he draws upon his intensely rich personal experience or he talks about the thing he’s truly passionate about — the institution of democracy.

These are my four favorite speeches of Barack Obama.

Have a listen next time you’re in a car or on a bus.

1. In Arizona after the shootings of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and constituents. January 12, 2011. 34 mins.

“And in Christina … in Christina, we see all of our children … so curious, so trusting, so energetic, so full of magic, so deserving of our love.”

The most memorable part of this speech happens towards the end. Obama transforms from speaking as President to speaking from the viewpoint of a 9-year old. Not just any 9-year old, but Christina Taylor Green, who was fatally shot in the attack in Arizona.

He describes Christina as beginning to take interest in democracy. To hear him describe the innocence of this child and the earnestness in her desires is heartbreaking. It’s moving, emotional and Obama delivers it flawlessly. And the Arizona crowd is electric.

“Imagine for a moment … Here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy. Just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship. Just starting to glimpse the fact that, some day she too might play a part in shaping our nation’s future.”

“She saw public service as something exciting … and hopeful.”

“She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important, and might be a role model…”

“She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol, that we adults all too often just take for granted.”

“I want to live up to her expectations … I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it.”

“All of us, we should do everything we can do, to make sure that this country lives up to our children’s expectations.”

2. Remarks to the White House Press Corps after the Trayvon Martin jury decision. July 19, 2013. 17 mins.

“Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty-five years ago.”

Obama was deeply affected by this tragedy. His speech here is unusually sullen. As the first black President, he is in a unique position to speak from the heart on what it means to be young and black in America.

The result is stirring. Obama wonders out loud if there is more that we can do as a nation, to help young black men, the most incarcerated demographic in the United States. About 1 in every 3 young black men, age 20–29, are in the criminal justice system — jail, probation, or parole (Source: The Sentencing Project).

“There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on doors of cars. That happen[ed] to me…at least before I was a senator.”

He briefly notes the violent history of African Americans in this country, and how that history plays a role in how these tragedies are interpreted.

But rather than dwell on the past, Obama uses this speech to pose some powerful questions about how we can move forward from here. He acknowledges a federal program isn't going to change anything, and conversations on race ought to happen on a local and state level, in churches and workplaces.

He wonders aloud, in the most powerful line in the speech:

“Is there more that we [as a nation] can do to give [young, black men] a sense that their country cares about them, and values them, and is willing to invest in them?”

He ends with a hopeful note. He mentions his daughters, and how the way they interact with their (non-black) friends is better than his generation, or his parents’ generation. If you've read “Dreams from My Father”, you might recall that Obama’s white grandmother, as a young girl, befriended a black girl. Other children in her Kansas neighborhood called her all sorts of nasty things for it. These days, Obama says, all over this country race relations are slowly improving. And while he acknowledges we will never have a “perfect union”, his optimism is real. Like in Arizona, he takes a tragedy to remind us not to be cynical.

3. At Barnard College, Commencement Address May 14, 2012. 31 mins.

“When I first arrived on this campus, it was with little money, fewer options. But it was here, that I tried to find my place in this world…”

This is my favorite Obama speech of all time. For one he was returning to Columbia University, my alma mater, where he graduated in 1983. Mostly though, it’s because I listened to this speech together with my family — my dad, older sister and younger brother — in our car as we drove along a highway in rural Virginia. My brother had just graduated from college in the South, and we were on our way back to New Jersey.

When family is together, it’s hardly ever quiet — people are talking, arguing, disagreeing or complaining.

Amazingly for the duration of this speech, we sat in complete silence as a family. That had never happened before.

We didn’t even know, being in a car in rural Virginia, if we could stream the speech. This was before smartphones were super powerful. I remember my sister tried to pull the speech up on her iPhone, but it didn’t load. Then, I pulled the live-stream of the speech from Barnard College’s website, and it worked! We ran the speech through the car’s speakers.

Obama delivered three decisive messages to the students of Barnard College.

One — don’t just to get involved, but fight for your seat at the table.

His second message was never underestimate the power of your example.

“Never underestimate the power of your example.”

He relates a story of a “friend” who was told by a high school guidance counselor that she wasn’t college material and should consider becoming a secretary instead.

This friend was stubborn and didn’t listen. So she went to college, then got a master’s degree and then ran for office. Lo and behold, Obama says, Hilda Solis, turned out to be a secretary after all — America’s Secretary of Labor. He extends the idea to say: think about what it means to a young Latina girl when she sees a Cabinet secretary that looks like her.

His story reminded me of a 2009 photo taken in the Oval Office. Obama was with the family of a former Marine who finished a two-year stint on the National Security Council, and was posing with the President for pictures.

The youngest son of the Marine, Jacob, age 5, shyly asked Obama if his hair was like the commander-in-chief. He asks the President: “I want to know if my hair is just like yours.”

The president couldn’t hear, and asked the five-year-old to repeat his question.

He then replied: “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?”

It’s a vivid image of the power of one’s example.

The final piece of advice in this speech was simple — persevere.

Obama tells a personal story of how he came to Chicago to work as a community organizer:

We tried to mobilize a meeting with community leaders to deal with gangs and I worked for weeks on this project, we invited the police, we made phone calls…we passed out flyers. The night of the meeting, we arranged rows and rows of chairs in anticipation of this crowd.

“It was a disaster. My first big community meeting and nobody showed up.”

When the other community activists wanted to give up and quit, he rouses them back. He recalls that he looked outside, and saw a bunch of young boys just throwing rocks in a vacant lot. They had nothing better to do late at night. He implored his volunteers with a question: who will fight for them if we don’t; who will give them a fair shot if we leave? He convinces the volunteers to stay in the fight, an early example of his ability to lead others.

What is so moving about this speech was he grounded it in his personal experience, stories he shared from growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii to being a community organizer in Chicago. Rather than be very political, or comical, like other commencement speeches he has given — he chose to be intensely personal. He draws upon the influences in his life that drove him, and implores graduates to find the “parents and grandparents” in their own lives to serve as inspiration.

4. At the Democratic National Convention. July 27, 2004. 17 mins.

“Let’s face it … my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely”

Not so long ago, Google allowed you to search the Internet circa the year 2000. You got the results from webpages archived that year.

I remember looking up the name “Barack Obama” and all I could find on the internet was information about someone in the Illinois State Senate. Even prior to this speech, Obama was certainly not a household name.

This speech changed everything. It was this speech that captivated a nation and drew this man into the process to run for President.

“They gave me an African name, Barack, believing that in a tolerant America — your name is no barrier to success.”

“That in no other country on earth … is my story even possible.”

Also, the red state, blue state analogy was so powerful — and one of the most memorable lines from the speech.

We’ll never see a speech like that from Obama again. Obama today is far more solemn and circumspect, less idealistic and hopeful.

But the energy and enthusiasm in the 2004 Democratic National Convention speech is truly something to behold.

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