Senator barack obama speech transcript

David Axelrod   Chief strategist, Obama campaign

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He really had a concept almost immediately in his head of what he wanted to communicate. And over the course of the next few weeks, he would write little bits and pieces on scraps of paper.

He would go into the men's room in the state Senate and jot things down. And eventually he sat down, brought all his scraps of paper together, and he banged out a draft of this speech.

I was in Europe on a brief vacation with my wife, and this fax arrived.

It was his speech draft.

Senator barack obama speech transcript dnc

By about the third page, I realized this is going to be one of the great convention speeches of all time. ...

This was confirmed the next day [after the convention,] when we walked through the streets of Boston and people were just mobbing Obama to congratulate him on the speech and tell him how much they appreciated it and so on.

His life changed overnight, really, with that speech.

Robert Gibbs   Communications director, Obama campaign