All Work and all Play Presidential Campaign Speechwriter shows you can have it all

Most college students have accepted that they will have to make sacrifices to be successful, this is true, but if you’re passionate about what you do, they stop feeling so much like sacrifices.

Presidential campaign speechwriter Lindsay Hayes said that she would do her job for free. That was key to getting her through several month blocks without a full night’s sleep. She has written speeches for Mitt Romney as well as Sarah Palin.

She began her career working in PR for high tech companies. She worked at Motorola, in the office of the CEO. Hayes says she felt like the job did not reflect her skillset and was miserable there so she sought out new opportunities.

Hayes said she did not know that a campaign speechwriter was even a job for a long time. A lot of people don’t have speech writers. She got a meeting with a potential employer and brought samples of her work. Hayes said “People don’t know you exist.” Speech writing is not a highly publicized job; she had to seek out her own opportunities when she was first starting out. As she became more highly classified people would come looking for her to work for them.

Hayes said she does not ever feel like she is missing out on more free time or a more extensive social life while dealing with the demands of being on the campaign trail. Hayes says that she really likes her job. Hayes said “Find a job that you would do for free and then don’t tell anyone that you would do it for free.” Both she and her husband own their own businesses, so they are able to be flexible. Hayes business is RedPath writing firm, where she writes for a variety of different clients, not only politicians.

Working in politics is on and off, depending on the election cycle. After her candidate has lost, Hayes says she can sit in her pajamas for two weeks straight and relax. She sometimes wonders why her friends don;t have time to hang out at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.

She makes a point to stay out of the spotlight so the politician can be the focus. She has no presence on social media and never has. Late Beginnings

Hayes was 25 when she began her first speech related internship. She was described as “the oldest living intern.’

On her first day the staff forgot she was coming, but that was before she accidentally got to see the VP and the political consultant that was her hero, Mary Matilan.

She was doing research for speech writers for the Bush administration. She learned a lot about being thorough and making sure everything was factual.

While doing the internship she was also teaching, and taking the latest night class in pursuit of her PhD in rhetoric and political culture. She later worked as a speechwriter on Capitol Hill for Alaskan senator for four and a half years.

She eventually became the senior speech writer for the Republican National Convention. It was there that the chief speechwriter for the McCain Palin campaign asked her if she would like to sit behind the stage for McCain’s speech. After Palin electrified the convention the chief speechwriter asked “How would you like to get on a plane with Sarah Palin?”

After a few days she did get on that plane.

When asked about her stances compared with the politicians Hayes said “I’m not going to agree 100 percent on all things all the time.”

She looks to work with candidates that she can agree with about 85 percent of the time. She has sought out certain politicians herself that she wanted to write for.

She tries to work out middle ground with the client and if they can’t come to an agreement on a particular stance she will recommend someone else.

Hayes says that the best speeches can come out of the speechwriter and the politician not agreeing, “I am the skeptical audience.”

She did not even plan to work on the 2012 presidential election, she was working on her doctorate and then the call came. Romney campaign spokesperson RIck Gorka told ABC News in a statement, “We’re very happy to have her on board and she will be a tremendous asset to our campaign team.”

Romney wasn’t built in a day

Hayes says traveling with candidates is exhausting. The primary election is particularly draining because the staff is skeletal and she may be the only speechwriter. She is able to get to know the client very well and is able to write for him or her. The process is very collaborative with the politician, where they have a lot of input.

The general election is very unpredictable where anything can happen. She does not know the fate of the candidate, and unexpected crises can come up that she has to be able to adapt to

and respond accordingly.

Her process she says is “messy.” It starts with eating, doing laundry, and scrubbing already clean pots. She has many notebooks with different ideas as well. Hayes spends a lot of time thinking through the approach before she begins to write.

Not having a blank page is crucial to beginning the speech writing process. Having an outline helps her to have a sense of flow. She reads her speeches out loud many times to make sure those things that sound good on paper also translate well when spoken.

Quit While You’re AheadThough Hayes has a very successful speech writing career she says “I don’t think I’ll be a speech writer forever.” In 2014 Hayes decided to move on from speech writing, she helped Ron

Paul with his new book “The Way Forward” which was released last August. “I want to be writing, work that matters.” Hayes is currently working on her own book about the impact of women in politics.

“If you don’t have anything to say there’s a problem.” She has spent a lot of time learning how other people think and conveying their messages but now she is working on forming her own voice.

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Kayla TarrantCOMM231June 30, 2015

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