The truth is, as cochairs, we each brought a complementary skill set to the reelect, and I was deeply honored that Obama and Biden felt I belonged there too. After my previous campaign and government roles, it felt good to know that my expertise on policy and outreach strategy was valued as much as my private-sector arts experience. I was years past the point of Iowa State campaign director Paul Tewes being temporarily worried that a Google search of my name might reveal images of me humping, smoking, jizzing, and a few other –ings that could have made me a political liability.
I had already agreed to resume my 2008 role and help out as a surrogate on the reelection campaign, traveling the country and speaking at various events on behalf of the president in between my acting and producing gigs. Once I accepted the national cochairship, there were a few additional requests of my time. In early August, I was preparing to give opening remarks ahead of POTUS at a low-dollar fundraiser being held at the Bridgeport Art Center in downtown Chicago. The large, bright windows and high roof of the event space resembled an idyllic old barn. That’s where I caught up with Obama’s senior advisor David Plouffe and campaign chairman Jim Messina backstage. Plouffe is a young dad who has likable-nerd qualities—very smart, with a deeply inspiring work ethic and drive. Messina I’d describe as something of a “likable cutthroat”—always kind to me, no-nonsense, and straight to the point. In the middle of our conversation underneath the rustic wood-beamed ceiling, the two looked at each other and Jim decisively said, “Hey, will you speak at the DNC?”
I was fired up for our four-hundred-person summer fundraiser speech. Nationally televised remarks in front of millions of people just wasn’t on my radar. “The Democratic National Convention? That DNC?”
I immediately thought back to the 2008 convention, standing for hours in jeans and comfortable sneakers with the bright yellow vest and an earpiece, floor whipping my delegations into such good shape that it led to my White House job.
What Plouffe and Messina were asking in this hot Chicago barn in 2012 was whether I actually wanted to be ON the stage this time. David grinned, assuming the role of the good cop in this good-cop/good-cop situation: “It’ll be fun. We think you’d have a lot to say.”
I enthusiastically accepted.
The parameters for my DNC remarks were simple: It should be no more than four minutes in length and encourage young people to vote. Besides that, I could pretty much say whatever I wanted. Even before I began formally writing, I had a good idea what I might want to talk about.
* * *
As a presidential aide, I had celebrated with fellow staffers and outside advocates during the big legislative victories like the Affordable Care Act. I had mourned when Congress refused to work with the president to pass bold and meaningful environmental legislation and blocked the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay. Through those highs and lows, I had the privilege of seeing what the world was like from the perspective of the boundless advocates we worked with every day, and the frustrating government bureaucrats whose checks and balances often stood in the way. In other words, the nature of our jobs as White House staffers meant we could see more of what was happening inside and outside of government—simultaneously—than most people around the country.
The point now was that I had an opportunity to speak to cynics and shout out successes. I could elevate the great work young people all over the country were still doing in partnership with the administration. I wanted my DNC speech to encapsulate their tough-fought victories. I wanted to connect real faces to the things Obama was trying to get done—from human rights to education to the economy. I figured maybe sharing the stories of people whose lives were impacted by politics could help cut through boring-sounding political jargon and make a strong case that young voters should come out for Obama again in 2012.
I thought about meeting my buddy Walker Burttschell—a marine who spent seven years advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell after he was kicked out of the military for being gay. Among his advocacy work was a 250-mile march from Norfolk, Virginia, to Washington, DC, to ask Senator Jim Webb to support the repeal. I considered the experiences of my friend Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant and tireless justice activist who was brought to the United States as a twelve-year-old from the Philippines. He pushed so hard for the DREAM Act, and his story was not uncommon.3
When I lived in Detroit for a few months while shooting A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, I had an acquaintance whose parents brought him to America from Russia as a child. It wasn’t until he went to the DMV to get his driver’s license that he found out what his parents never told him: He was undocumented. The summer before my speech, he was arrested and thrown in detention by ICE. He obviously wasn’t a violent criminal. In fact, at the time of his arrest, he was working as an educator, teaching English to inner-city kids. （Yeah, let that one sink in; we tried to deport someone who was teaching English to other Americans.）
I also thought about my friend and White House coworker Ashley Baia. When Ashley was a child, her mother contracted cancer and lost her job. Watching her mom struggle to pay bills, Ashley decided she’d help the family save money by convincing her mother that her favorite food was mustard and relish sandwiches. It was the simple and pure action of a young girl who understood enough about the cost of her meals to want to help put more food on the table of her struggling family.
And with a giant grin across my face, I remembered a particularly debaucherous night on a USO tour that I did to South Korea. My college buddy DLC joined me on that trip, and one night after wrapping up our duties visiting with American troops at our military bases, we stopped for a couple of drinks at some nearby bars. A gay bar we stumbled into was technically off limits to American military because Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect, so it surprised us to see a small group of soldiers proudly enjoying their beers and shots inside. “Only one of us is gay,” one of them explained. “When the rest of us found out about him, it wasn’t even a question that we’d never report him to our higher-ups. We’re a unit. We’d take a bullet for each other. We protect American freedom. We’re not going to get him kicked out. The only thing that’s changed is that we now hit up both gay and straight bars on our days off, so that all of us have a shot at getting laid.”4
* * *
I wanted to shout out all these passionate people in my speech. As I got my outlines together, I realized I had the emotional arc of the stories down well, but man, it had been a while since I’d written something fun. During my two years in government, as a by-product of the risk-averse White House Communications team, the Public Engagement liaisons had pretty much been told to “be boring.” The thinking was that junior and midlevel government staffers aren’t supposed to be interesting, let alone funny. When we blogged on the White House website or spoke in front of audiences, we were supposed to convey the information in a straightforward way, avoid stepping on land mines, and quickly get out of the room. Break those rules, and we’d risk being the story instead of conveying it. When this staff policy was introduced, I thought it was so totally ridiculous that I printed out an image of a backbone and stuck it on our office wall. “Someone in this building needs to find where theirs is,” I said to three of my officemates before asking, “Why is everything we do reactive? Why is it based in fear?”