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David Axelrod

1. Why He Matters
2. At a Glance
3. Path to Power
1. 3.1. Birth of a Political Consultant
2. 3.2. Two Consulting Firms
3. 3.3. Meeting Obama
4. 3.4. 2008 Presidential Race
4. The Issues
5. The Network
1. 5.1. Rahm Emanuel
2. 5.2. Hillary Rodham Clinton
3. 5.3. Richard M. Daley

Current Position: Senior White House adviser (since January 2009)

Table of Contents

1. Why He Matters
2. At a Glance
3. Path to Power
1. 3.1. Birth of a Political Consultant
2. 3.2. Two Consulting Firms
3. 3.3. Meeting Obama
4. 3.4. 2008 Presidential Race
4. The Issues
5. The Network
1. 5.1. Rahm Emanuel
2. 5.2. Hillary Rodham Clinton
3. 5.3. Richard M. Daley

Why He Matters

Axelrod, the political consultant who is Barack Obama’s senior adviser at the White House, often derides fellow consultants he says see themselves as being at least as important as — and often smarter than — the candidates for whom they work.

"I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher," he once said.Robert G. Kaiser, “The Player at Bat,” The Washington Post, May 2, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...103509_pf.html

Now, Axelrod has decided to eliminate the distance — both physical and psychological — that he’s maintained for more than two decades from Washington, the Oz of Politics; and history shows that his very presence at the White House is likely to stir controversy.

From the turn of the 20th Century, when President William McKinley had his political shaman, Mark Hanna, to the first eight years of the 21st Century dominated by President George W. Bush and his political alter ego, Karl Rove, experience shows that giving a political adviser a role in an administration automatically raises questions about how much partisan politics, and re-election demands, will displace the needs of the nation in presidential decision making.

Axelrod, the message manager for Barack Obama’s nearly flawless presidential campaign, shrugs off questions about how much clout he’ll have in Obama’s Oval Office. “I’m a kibitzer with a broad portfolio,” he says.Lynn Sweet, “What next for David Axelrod?,” The Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 1, 2008. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008..._axelrood.html

“My job is different from Mr. Rove’s,” Axelrod has said. “I see my job simply as helping disseminate the message of Barack Obama, working with the communications team to make sure that we're true to the ideals and the values and the programs that he wants to advance in this country. And that's the extent of my involvement.”David Gregory, Axelrod interview, Meet the Press/NBC, Dec. 28, 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28408003/page/3/

At a Glance

Current Position: Senior White House adviser (since January 2009)

Career History: Partner of AKP&D Message and Media formerly known as Axelrod & Associates (since 1985); Partner ASK Public Strategies (since 2002); Media Adviser to Barack Obama (2004 and 2008)

Birthday: Feb. 22, 1955

Hometown: New York, N.Y.

Alma Mater: University of Chicago, B.A. (political science), 1977

Spouse: Susan Landau

Religion: N/A

DC Office: N/A

Email N/A

Web site

Path to Power

If the traditional image of a Washington political adviser has a polar opposite, it would be David Axelrod. Though he owns a few suits and ties, they often seem reserved for television appearances. Just as often on the campaign trail, Axelrod can be seen schlepping beside his natty candidate wearing a pullover sweater, open collar and a droopy mustache often described as “damp.”Times Topics, “David Axelrod,” The New York Times, Oct. 18, 2008. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...inline=nyt-per

Axelrod grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City and was bitten early by the political bug. His mom, Myril, wrote for PM, a leftist daily newspaper in New York bankrolled by Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III and often accused of having ties to the Communist Party. His dad, Joseph, was a psychologist and standout amateur baseball player. Axelrod’s parents divorced when he was just a boy and his father later committed suicide, devastating the son who would eventually write that it took him 30 years “to say out loud that the man I most loved and admired took his own life.”“David Axelrod: Political Strategist,” The (UK) Independent, Oct. 25, 2008. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/pe...st-972796.html

By age 10, Axelrod was canvassing his housing development with a cardboard box filled with the brochures of New York mayoral candidate John Lindsay.Christopher Hayes, “Obama’s Media Maven,” The Nation, Feb. 19, 2007. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes At 13, he was selling campaign buttons and bumper stickers for Robert Kennedy.Amanda Paulson, “David Axelrod: architect of Obama’s unlikely campaign,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0715/p01s04-uspo.html

When it came time for college, Axelrod and his family agreed that he would benefit from time away from New York. He ended up at the University of Chicago, where he studied political science. While in school, Axelrod wrote for a neighborhood newspaper, The Hyde Park Herald, and secured an internship with The Chicago Tribune. He also met his future wife, Susan Landau, a business student. The couple has three grown children, one of whom suffers from debilitating epilepsy that prompted Axelrod and Landau to found the group Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy or CURE.Robert G. Kaiser, “The Player at Bat,” The Washington Post, May 2, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hcmodule

Axelrod went to work for The Tribune the day after he graduated in 1977,Charlie Rose, “A conversation with political consultant David Axelrod,” March 30, 2007, Public Broadcasting System. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8346 and, at age 27, became the paper’s youngest-ever chief political writer.

But Axelrod wasn’t entirely satisfied writing about politics and, he would later add, was becoming disenchanted with the “corporatization” of American newspapers.Charlie Rose, “A conversation with political consultant David Axelrod,” March 30, 2007, Public Broadcasting System. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8346

Rep. Paul Simon (D), a folksy, intellectual liberal from southern Illinois who had his own journalism roots, had been lobbying Axelrod to come work on Simon’s 1984 Senate campaign, prompting the prodigy to leave the Tribune and journalism for good.Charlie Rose, “A conversation with political consultant David Axelrod,” March 30, 2007, Public Broadcasting System. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8346

Birth of a Political Consultant

Axelrod joined the Simon campaign as communications director. Less than two months later, he was promoted to co-manager of the campaign, and Simon went on to defeat 18-year incumbent Republican Sen. Charles Percy.Patrick T. Reardon, “The Agony and the Agony,” The Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2007.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...7326.htmlstory

With Simon on his way to the Senate, Axelrod in 1985 opened shop in Chicago, forming Axelrod & Associates, a political consultancy, with Forest Claypool, one of his deputies from the Simon campaign. They handled mostly longshot candidates for two years before they took on a campaign that significantly influenced Axelrod’s career path. Harold Washington, Chicago’s first — and so far only — African-American mayor, was running for re-election in 1987 when he hired Axelrod to handle the campaign.Patrick T. Reardon, “The Agony and the Agony,” The Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2007.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...7326.htmlstory

It was the first time Axelrod worked for a black candidate, though he had come to know and admire Washington during his time at the Tribune. He calls Washington “the most kinetic campaigner and politician that I’ve ever met.”Christopher Hayes, “Obama’s Media Maven,” The Nation, Feb. 19, 2007. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes

The campaign quickly turned ugly. The city’s predominantly white political machine had mobilized against Washington, thwarting him at every opportunity during the so-called “Council Wars.” His political opponents passed out buttons featuring a picture of a watermelon and his Republican opponent, Bernard Epton, campaigned on the slogan “Before It’s Too Late.”Christopher Hayes, “Obama’s Media Maven,” The Nation, Feb. 19, 2007. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes

Axelrod recalled meeting with Washington the day after he won the election. "He turned to us and asked, 'What percentage of the white vote did I get?' We told him it was 20 percent, and we were happy, because four years earlier he'd gotten only 8 percent." But Washington wasn’t impressed. He had spent as much as 80 percent of his time campaigning in white neighborhoods. Washington said, “Ain't it a bitch to be a black man in the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Axelrod recalled.Christopher Hayes, “Obama’s Media Maven,” The Nation, Feb. 19, 2007. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes

Two Consulting Firms

Axelrod & Associates evolved into AKP&D Message & Media and Axelrod became the firm’s senior partner. But Axelrod and his new partners also created a second firm, ASK Public Strategies, which is as secretive as the political consultancy is public. ASK dealt only with corporate clients, including AT&T, ComEd, Cablevision and the Chicago Children’s Museum.Howard Wolinsky, “The Secret Side of David Axelrod,” Business Week, March 14, 2008.
http://www.businessweek.com/print/bw...14_121054.html

ASK specializes in a practice known as “astroturfing,” which involves setting up front groups that appear to be independent but are, in fact, backed financially by Axelrod’s corporate clients. When ComEd, the Chicago-based utility, wanted to raise electric rates after a 10-year freeze, ASK formed a group called Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE, to help win over public support. It used a similar technique to aid other clients.Howard Wolinsky, “The Secret Side of David Axelrod,” Business Week, March 14, 2008.
http://www.businessweek.com/print/bw...14_121054.html

Politically, Axelrod, who will leave both firms to work for Obama, had found his niche: consulting for African-American candidates. In addition to Washington’s campaign, Axelrod helped Deval Patrick become Massachusetts’ first African- American governor in 2006 and, two years later, helped make Obama America’s first black president.

Axelrod has played a major role in some of the black community’s greatest political triumphs. The roster of Axelrod’s clients includes Carol Moseley-Braun (D), the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate; Dan Archer, the first black mayor of Detroit and first African- American president of the American Bar Association; and Lee Brown, first black mayor of Houston.

Before joining Obama’s presidential campaign, Axelrod’s office was winning nearly 80 percent of the campaigns on which it worked.Patrick T. Reardon, “The Agony and the Agony,” The Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2007.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...7326.htmlstory

The key to Axelrod’s success in electing African-American candidates is his ability to sell them to white voters.Jeff Zeleny, “Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title,” The New York Time, Oct. 27, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us...27axelrod.html It’s a strategy that has served Axelrod’s clients well, though it has not been without criticism.

To some critics, there is a sameness to Axelrod-run campaigns. “Yes, we can,” the slogan that drew voters eager for change to Obama’s presidential bid made earlier appearances in both Obama’s Senate run and Deval Patrick’s race for governor in Massachusetts, both of which Axelrod worked.On the Media, “Backin’ Black,” National Public Radio, Feb. 23, 2007 http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/02/23/06

Not all of Axelrod’s clients are black, to be sure. He remains closely aligned with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) and helped Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff, to win a House seat.

Meeting Obama

In fact, Axelrod had planned to sit out the 2008 presidential campaign because so many of his former clients were competing against each other for the Democratic nomination, including former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut.Charlie Rose, “A conversation with political consultant David Axelrod,” March 30, 2007, Public Broadcasting System. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8346

Obama had already talked about his presidential ambitions, but they both agreed it was too early for the first-term Senator. He should wait. That changed in 2006 when Obama went on tour for his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” which Axelrod helped edit. Thousands of people who turned out for his book signings mentioned the inspiring speech Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention and suggested he run for president. “This was the closest thing to a draft that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Axelrod said. He and Axelrod reconsidered the matter and entered the race as a team.“Interview: David Axelrod,” Frontline/Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 14, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...s/axelrod.html

Axelrod first met Barack Obama through a mutual acquaintance in 1992. He would later recall liking the Harvard Law School grad who’d come to Chicago’s South Side to work as a community organizer. But Axelrod wasn’t exactly wowed. The two men stayed in touch, but it wasn’t until nearly ten years after their initial meeting, when Obama was thinking about running for the U.S. Senate, that he and Axelrod finally joined forces.Jeff Zeleny, “Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title,” The New York Time, Oct. 27, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us...27axelrod.html

Axelrod focused Obama’s Senate campaign on predominantly white southern Illinois rather than on the African-American wards of Chicago. “First of all, I never felt in our campaign for the Senate that he had to make a special effort to reach the African-American community,” Axelrod has said. “I always felt that if we did it right that he would rise in prominence in the campaign, and the community would see this and respond to it and respond to him. Obviously we made appeals there, but they weren't particularly different than the appeals we made anywhere else.“Interview: David Axelrod,” Frontline/Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 14, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...s/axelrod.html

By the time Obama decided to run for president, Axelrod was convinced that there had been a seismic shift in public opinion over race. It wasn’t that race no longer mattered; people just had bigger issues on their mind.

“I think the really big story on race isn't the resistance that we're meeting but how little resistance there has been,” Axelrod said. “People have got bigger concerns and we've moved beyond that as a country. So I don't worry about that, what I worry about is mobilizing our voters so that when people come out they understand that in many of these battleground states the race is close. It's not enough to anticipate victory; you have to earn it.”Jay Newton-Small, “Q&A: Top Obama Strategist David Axelrod,” Time Magazine, Oct. 30, 2008. http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...5278-3,00.html

2008 Presidential Race

As he did with Obama’s Senate race, Axelrod focused the 2008 presidential campaign on caucus contests in mostly white states like Iowa, while chief Obama rival Clinton employed the more traditional strategy of focusing on primary states rich in electoral votes.

But Axelrod’s most crucial contribution to the Obama’s campaign was his insistence on sticking with an optimistic message of hope even when Obama was under intense criticism from Clinton, and others in the campaign questioned whether Obama should go negative.Amanda Paulson, “David Axelrod: architect of Obama’s unlikely campaign,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0715/p01s04-uspo.html

Axelrod, true to his journalistic roots, builds campaigns around the candidate by mining their biographies for the details to which voters could best relate. He also often needs to feel a personal connection to the people for whom he’s working, his friends and associates say. In that sense, Obama may have been the perfect candidate for Axelrod, who once said, “If I could help to get Obama to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life.”“David Axelrod: Political Strategist,” The (UK) Independent, Oct. 25, 2008. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/pe...st-972796.html
“I do love Barack Obama,” Axelrod said. “I believe in him.”“Interview: David Axelrod,” Frontline/Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 14, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...s/axelrod.html

The Issues

Axelrod loves Obama enough that the media guru is finally going to make the move from his adopted hometown of Chicago to Washington, D.C. He told reporters during the 2008 campaign that he had no intention of leaving Chicago,Jeff Zeleny, “Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title,” The New York Time, Oct. 27, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us...27axelrod.html and now he says he’s “heartbroken” to be moving. He’ll get an apartment, he said, and his wife and family will remain in Chicago.John McCormick and Christi Parsons, “Obama taps Axelrod for senior White House adviser role,” The Chicago Tribune, Nov. 20, 2008. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...,2527277.story

In an email to Greg Hinz of Crain’s Chicago Business, Axelrod made it clear that he never intends to call Washington home. “Just to be clear, I am not moving from Chicago — just doing a little public service for a while.”Greg Hinz, “Axelrod to join Obama White House,” Crain’s Chicago Business, Nov. 19, 2008. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-b...31891&seenIt=1

It remains unclear just what Axelrod will do in the White House, where he will take on a wide-ranging portfolio that remains largely undefined, though it appears that Axelrod’s chief duty, officially or unofficially, will be protecting Obama’s political image much as he did during the campaign.

The master strategist resists comparisons to Rove, whose broad duties in the Bush White House led to the perception that he was a political Svengali pulling strings and ensuring that Bush’s political goals were always the top priority.

Rove’s critics often point to the post-9/11 era when Bush used his increased political capital to force through politically beneficial tax cuts rather than expand on a palpable public desire for bipartisanship.

Axelrod insists Obama’s re-election in 2012 isn’t going to be his central focus in the West Wing.

“The American people are not looking for more politics, they're looking for solutions, and that's what we want to provide,” Axelrod says. “We've got plenty of good talented, political people who are not coming into the administration. And when the time comes, we'll run the campaign. But our view is that we've got tremendous challenges in this country right now, and what we should be thinking about is how we're going to address those and not the next election. And if we do that well, the next election will take care of itself.”David Gregory, Axelrod interview, Meet the Press/NBC, Dec. 28, 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28408003/page/3/

However his White House duties are ultimately defined, there’s no doubt that Axelrod has Obama’s ear at a time when the new president is inheriting two wars, a global economic meltdown and an American public demanding solutions.

“He and I share a basic worldview,” Obama has said of Axelrod. “I trust his basic take on what the country should be and where we need to move towards — not just on specific policy, but how politics should be able to draw on our best and not our worst.”Jeff Zeleny, “Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title,” The New York Time, Oct. 27, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us...27axelrod.html

The Network

Rahm Emanuel

Axelrod and Emanuel go back to 1984 when they both worked on the Senate campaign of Paul Simon (D) in Illinois. They also worked together on Chicago Mayor’s Richard M. Daley’s (D) first campaign in 1989. The two men remained in near-constant contact while working on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Axelrod could claim much of the credit for helping Emanuel win election to Congress in 2002. Emanuel had left the Clinton White House and amassed a $16 million fortune in less than three years as an investment banker.Cyrus Sanati and Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Rahm Emanuel, Former Investment Banker,” The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/20...stment-banker/ That created an image problem — Emanuel as the wealthy carpetbagger — in his blue-collar congressional district. So Axelrod produced an ad in which a Chicago cop, revealed at the end of the ad to be Emanuel’s uncle, endorsed the candidate. “One-third of the Chicago police department lives in my district. It grounded me here,” Emanuel said in the ad. It worked.Amanda Paulson, “David Axelrod: architect of Obama’s unlikely campaign,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0715/p01s04-uspo.html

In 2006, Emanuel took over the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and brought Axelrod in as his chief strategist. House Democrats won 31 House seats that year, ending 12 years of Republican control of the chamber.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Axelrod worked on Clinton’s 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate in New York, but the two squared off in the 2008 presidential race in which Axelrod was working for Obama. Axelrod saw Clinton as “indefatigable” and “as tenacious as all get out” with a serious political organization backing her. But he fended off Clinton’s campaign when it tried to tie Obama to his controversial minister, Jeremiah Wright, and accused Obama of plagiarizing from speeches given two years earlier by another Axelrod client, Deval Patrick, Massachusetts’ first African-American governor.“Interview: David Axelrod,” Frontline/Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 14, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...s/axelrod.html

Axelrod later said Clinton’s presidential bid was doomed because of its “strategic misjudgment” to run as “the consummate Washington insider.”“Interview: David Axelrod,” Frontline/Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 14, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...s/axelrod.html

Richard M. Daley

Daley, the son and heir of Chicago’s original machine boss, Richard J. Daley, is many things. But being articulate is not something he is known for. This is, after all, the man who responded, “What do you want me to do? Take my pants off?” when told of complaints that he hadn’t worked hard enough to elect a candidate.Pam Belluck, “Daley, Ever Neutralizing Critics, Runs Again,” The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1998. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all

But Axelrod neutralized Daley's penchant for non-sequiturs when Daley made his first run for mayor in 1989. Axelrod cut an unusual ad in which Daley admits to his audience that he may not be the best speaker in the world, but he knew how to lead a city. "It took away in one fell swoop the most likely line of attack," said David Wilhelm, who managed Daley’s campaign and three years later ran Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.Amanda Paulson, “David Axelrod: architect of Obama’s unlikely campaign,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0715/p01s04-uspo.html

Daley and Axelrod remain close.

At AKP&D, the media firm he founded, Axelrod has worked with David Plouffe, John Kupper and John Del Cecato. Plouffe is a top strategist for Barack Obama and the architect behind Obama's campaign. Kupper joined AKP&D in 1988 and was formerly a press secretary for Rep. Henry Reuss (D-Wisc.). Del Cecato has worked press for Tom Vilsack’s (D-Iowa) run for governor in 1998 and was the national spokesman for the DCCC before joining AKP&D.

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