Michael Sheehan: coaching Clinton - Clinton administration's media trainer and speech coach

Michael Sheehan is a modern-age media trainer and speech coach. More often than not, he's a political candidate's best hope for developing the techniques to appear confident and in-control in front of a television camera or a live audience. While some pundits criticize candidates for using this type of service, people like Lloyd Bentsen, Ann Richards and even Bill Clinton have all benefitted from his expertise.

Sheehan coins soundbites and trains public, political and corporate figures to better present themselves. His advice contains many buzzwords like front loading answers, listening patterns, message discipline, cognitive dissonance, lists of threes, and "contrasting points. He helps politicians with nearly every form of speech, from debates, to more structured addresses like those made at national conventions. "I bring out their strengths, I try to bring out the best qualities in candidates that they already have."

With the media grading a politician's every movement, Sheehan's job is critical, but he is still "amazed that anyone with any history of public service would work with someone like me, not that the skills aren't needed. It can be a little humbling."

In March 1992, Sheehan joined Clinton's campaign. He worked with him "in increasing speeds and different amounts," particularly on the television debates. Since then he has coached Clinton for his inaugural address and his successful State of the Union speech.

Ironically, Clinton and Sheehan have similar backgrounds. Clinton graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in 1968, Sheehan in 1973. Clinton graduated from Yale Law School, Sheehan from Yale Drama School.

At the moment, his task is also to prepare members of the administration for speeches, interviews, and Congressional testimony.

Other than Clinton, Sheehan will not divulge which Cabinet and White House staff members receive his help. "I don't coach and tell," he said.

Nor will Sheehan take all of the credit for coaching people like Lloyd Bentsen for his memorable performance in the 1988 vice presidential debate, or Ann Richards in her acclaimed Democratic Convention keynote that year.

Sheehan got his first taste of politics as associate producer for Washington's Folger Theater. "I started getting phone calls from press secretaries and administrative aides. It would always go something like this, 'My boss has to give a very important speech next week and he's not comfortable on the stump. You must know something about this, you do Shakespeare." Always happy to make friends in high places, Sheehan would usually agree to help.

As the president of Sheehan Associates, an independent affiliate of Ogilvy, Adams & Rinehart, he avoids a purely political clientele, "I prefer not to dream about politics year round." Besides politicians, his major clients include Chemical Bank, the Gillette Company, the American Bankers Association, the American Medical Association, the March of Dimes, and the Children's Defense Fund.

His office walls are lined with pictures of many major business and Democratic officials, yet one really stands out in his mind -- Bruce Babbit. Sheehan describes Babbit as someone who understands his place, "I never met anybody that had a better sense of himself and the role he plays."

As the news media focuses more on big business, and shareholder meetings become more interactive, the demand for media coaching of corporate executives from experts like Sheehan is increasing.

And after 13 years of experience, Sheehan has come to believe his field is a growth industry. He has done so well, he has become the target of good-natured ribbing from his counterparts. One GOP consultant had the audacity to call this Democrat a "political fatcat." To which Sheehan replied, "I'm experiencing role reversal because I sure as hell know what Republican consultants charge, and I'm not quite at that level."

But since most of his clients sit in America's seats of power, Sheehan can sit back and laugh at such tomfoolery. As he says, "the whole process is absurd anyway."

COPYRIGHT 1993 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
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