"David Axelrod Talks to The Page" (video)

Mark Halperin--The Page (TIME), video (01:29).

Barack Obama

"Axelrod tells NPR he's willing to go more than halfway on Michigan and Florida"

Avi Zenilman (Ben Smith's Blog):

NPR just sent out a press release with excerpts of an interview Obama Chief Strategist David Axelrod gave "All Things Considered" host Michele Norris, where he seemed to open the door to a deal on Michigan and Florida:

"We are open to comprise [sic]. We are willing to go more than half way. We're willing to work to make sure that we can achieve a compromise. And I guess the question is: is Senator Clinton's campaign willing to do the same?"

Axelrod continues: "Well, obviously, any compromise is going to involve some give, and that means if there's something on the table, we're willing to consider it. That may include us yielding more delegates than perhaps we would have, simply on the basis of the rules."[

This comes after Clinton compared the fight for the rogue delegations to the civil rights movement earlier today . David Kuhn and I noted a couple weeks ago that sitting Florida and Michigan wouldn't change the underlying dynamic of the race.

Howie P.S.: More people are starting to figure that out.

"Sen. Barack Obama's No. 1 Fan"

WaPo:

David Axelrod first showed signs of chronic fan syndrome in the early 1960s in his native New York City. The initial symptom involved baseball. His dad had recently allowed the New York Mets (born 1962) to occupy the place in his heart long filled by the New York Giants (moved to San Francisco, 1957), and began taking his precocious son to games -- lots of them. "I was a big Mets fan," Axelrod reports. From the age of 8, when his parents separated, he spent weekends with his father, a ballplayer turned psychologist. "Most weekends we'd spend one or both days out at the ballpark," Axelrod remembers. A fan was born.

For nearly four decades Axelrod has lived in Chicago. The transplant is now deeply rooted, with chronic fan syndrome intact. The Mets are history. Now Axelrod holds season tickets to the Chicago Bulls of the NBA, the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. He and his wife, Susan, have a subscription to Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts. When politics don't interfere, he can lead quite a fan's life.

Axelrod, 53, is the preeminent political consultant in Chicago, and has operated successfully all over the country. He has helped Deval Patrick become governor of Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton become a senator from New York, and Anthony Williams become mayor of Washington, among many others. Over the past 16 months he has become a national figure as chief strategist for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, a job that regularly puts him on television -- "Meet the Press" two Sundays ago and "Face the Nation" last Sunday, and all over cable news last week. On television he is a cool, articulate spokesman for his candidate, a well-spoken salesman with a product to sell. But his friends realize that behind his mild-mannered exterior lurks the intense Axelrod they all know -- the fan.

Politics and sports are close cousins, and politics can provide an outlet for the fan's instincts. Axelrod roots for politicians with the intensity fans usually save for their teams. "He's really sort of an innocent," says Sam Smith, a retired Chicago Tribune sportswriter and one of Axelrod's closest friends. His pal is regularly infatuated with the candidates he works for as a consultant, Smith says: "He believes the best of the people in politics" -- at least for a time.

"He loves his candidates when he starts," Smith explains, but the love often fades; "he's usually let down when he finishes [a campaign]."

Told of Smith's remark, Axelrod demurs, denying that his candidates regularly disappoint him. "That's not really true," he says during a recent conversation in Obama headquarters here. "I've had my disappointments for sure, but I've been really, really lucky. Part of what has allowed me to practice the politics I like is that I've hooked up with some really outstanding people."

He considers Obama the most outstanding of them all. Axelrod has decided that this first-term senator, just 46 years old, is something extraordinary, someone to compare to his earliest political idol, Robert F. Kennedy. "This time he found a candidate who isn't letting him down," Smith says. "Obama is the one different guy."

Robert Swidler, now a lawyer in Troy, N.Y., is Axelrod's oldest friend. They grew up together in Stuyvesant Town, a vast community of high-rise, red-brick apartment houses just north of the East Village in Lower Manhattan. They went off to kindergarten together at Public School 40 on East 19th Street, went through Junior High 104 across the street and won admission to Stuyvesant High School, an academically selective public school, three blocks away.

Swidler recalls how, as 13-year-olds, they set up a card table, first at the Bronx Zoo, then on busy 57th Street, to sell buttons and bumper stickers for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. Their politics were established even then, Swidler recalls -- New York liberals with an idealistic bent who thought government should help the weakest members of society.

Axelrod remembers Robert Kennedy's assassination in the early hours of June 5, 1968. He thinks he was awake at the time, nearly 3:30 a.m., watching television or listening to the radio: "I wanted to see if he'd win the [California] primary, I knew how important it was. And I just was devastated, because I found him such an inspiring figure." So did millions of others, of course. Robert Kennedy was the last Democratic politician who could make voters swoon.

"When we started this campaign, I said to Barack, in many ways idealism died with [RFK], and we needed to rekindle that. And if we did this right, perhaps we could help do that." A fan speaks -- grandly, but that's what fans do.

'I'm a Multi-Tasker'

Among political professionals, the Obama campaign has been the object of admiration -- "flawlessly run," in the words of Bob Beckel, campaign manager of Walter F. Mondale's 1984 run for the White House. Obama, Axelrod, his partner David Plouffe and a small band of comrades drew up a plan early in 2007 to challenge the reigning first family of the Democratic Party for the presidential nomination on behalf of a neophyte Illinois senator whose name sounded foreign. They stuck to their plan even when they fell behind Hillary Clinton -- 33 points behind in a Washington Post-ABC News poll of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic that was completed on Sept. 30.

The Obama message also has never changed. As he laid it out in the Feb. 10, 2007, speech announcing his candidacy, Obama blames the country's inability to deal with its many problems on "the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics -- the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems." When Clinton pulled so far ahead in the polls, many skeptics thought this message was inadequate to the task. Obama, Axelrod and their colleagues thought otherwise.

And then they won the Iowa caucuses. After four months of primaries, caucuses and jockeying for the support of superdelegates -- the past and present elected and party officials who will now decide the ultimate winner -- Obama is the front-runner. The plan worked, at least so far. The fact that he was right when the conventional wisdom was so wrong gives Axelrod considerable satisfaction.

"Seven months ago I was spending a lot of time talking to guys like you who basically would tell me you're 30 points behind in the national polls, she seems almost unbeatable," he says. "Mark Penn [then Clinton's chief strategist] was declaring victory. And we placed our bet on the American people. And now we've won twice as many primaries and caucuses, and I think we're in a very strong position. That's because there is a hunger for something different, and I think Barack represents that."

As chief strategist, Axelrod has been a player-coach for the campaign. He appears comfortably on television for Obama, helps the candidate formulate his message, makes television commercials, consults daily with colleagues on how time and resources should be spent, BlackBerrys constantly with reporters, colleagues and supporters, and talks on the phone, too. "I'm a multi-tasker," he explains.

Axelrod is an atypical political consultant. Over the past generation his profession has become a dominant force in American politics. Its leading practitioners -- all wealthy and most full of themselves -- have become central actors in the country's political dramas. Axelrod has been influential himself, but works hard at avoiding self-promotional bloviation. "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 says.

"David always wants to test and retest his ideas -- at all hours!" says Forrest Claypool, his first partner in the consulting business. Axelrod is famous for his middle-of-the-night phone calls. "He's constantly soliciting diverse views," says Claypool.

According to Beckel, whose Mondale campaign featured the jealousies, leaks and backbiting typical of presidential crusades (the sort that have been on display in the strife-torn Clinton campaign this year), the most remarkable aspect of the Obama operation is the total absence of drama. "There seems to be a cohesion there," Beckel says.

Axelrod's troops clearly adore him, and he goes out of his way to praise their accomplishments. For example: "My partner David Plouffe has done the most magnificent job of managing a campaign that I've seen in my life of watching presidential politics. To start something like this from scratch and build what we have built was a truly remarkable thing."

Making His Way

It is also a Chicago thing. To a jaundiced eye from the East, Carl Sandburg's "city of big shoulders" is an unexpected locus of optimism -- a community whose leading citizens believe fervently in civic progress and the ameliorative power of politics. "Chicago is a place where the impossible becomes possible," argues Marilyn Katz, a public relations consultant and political operative who has worked with Axelrod for 30 years. "We don't have New York cynicism."

Axelrod doesn't either, despite his Manhattan origins. His friend David Wilhelm, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a sometime resident of the Windy City, says Axelrod has played an important role in diminishing the racial tensions that once racked Chicago, first by helping Harold Washington, the city's first (and still only) black mayor, elected with the votes of white liberals, then by helping Rich Daley, the mayor today and the recipient of large numbers of black votes -- including a majority of them in last year's reelection campaign, when both of Daley's opponents were black. Daley's Chicago is booming, though chronic urban problems like weak schools and crime have not been solved. "The part of his career he is most proud of," says Axelrod's sister, Joan, who is six years older than he, "is his real commitment to politicians who he believes can make a difference."

Axelrod first came to Chicago to attend its famous university in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side. He had been admitted to Columbia in New York and the University of Chicago. "My folks both thought it would be good to get away from New York and be on my own," he remembers. "I didn't disagree." Chicago soon became another of his enthusiasms.

At the university he studied political science and wrote for the Chicago Maroon, the school's daily paper. His specialty was politics, particularly South Side politics. Eugene "Chip" Forrester, another member of the Class of 1977 on the Maroon, remembers Axelrod as an adventurous student reporter who burrowed into the unfamiliar South Side terrain that produced Harold Washington, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Jesse Jackson and other African American politicos. While still an undergraduate he became a political columnist for the Hyde Park Herald, a community weekly, then got an internship with the Chicago Tribune. He was so successful that the Tribune put him on its reporting staff right after he graduated in 1977.

Axelrod's beloved father, a victim of depression, had taken his own life three years earlier, when Axelrod was 19. "I was largely on my own out here," he says. "I kind of grew up at the newspaper, covering the city. I worked nights, covered every manner of disaster, murder and mayhem. Little by little I got to know the city really well, and I fell in love with it. Then I fell in love with a woman from the city, and it was very clear to me that this is where I wanted to be."

Axelrod met Susan Landau playing basketball in a coed league in Hyde Park. Her father was a medical professor at the university. She and Axelrod married in 1979.

Axelrod's career at the Tribune flourished. He became a local political columnist while still in his 20s. But according to his friend Sam Smith, who covered politics with Axelrod before becoming a sportswriter, "David was better than the people above him," and felt his ambitions would be frustrated. So in 1984, when a professorial, liberal Illinois congressman named Paul Simon won the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate against Charles Percy, a three-term Republican incumbent, he was able to persuade Axelrod to become his press secretary.

Switching sides from reporter to participant suited Axelrod. He loved the competition, and he preferred fighting in the arena to a seat in the bleachers. After a shake-up in the Simon campaign, Axelrod found himself -- at 28 -- running all campaign communications. David Wilhelm, then 27, was the campaign manager. With the help of anti-Percy money and commercials from pro-Israel groups angry with the senator's support for selling military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Simon won. Axelrod thought he had helped a smart, good man to the Senate -- he was a Simon fan.

From there he went into business as a political consultant. Soon Democratic hopefuls were streaming to his door; he made a lot of money. He became famous for ingenious campaign commercials that solved big political problems for his clients.

One was Rahm Emanuel, the veteran of the Clinton White House who returned home to Chicago to run for the House of Representatives in 2002. Opponents called him a carpetbagger and an elitist without roots in the city. Axelrod produced a 30-second spot featuring a Chicago police sergeant named Les Smulevitz, who sat in a diner and spoke into the camera: "I've been a Chicago police officer for a long time, and I've seen it all -- the guns, the gangs, the drugs . . . ." He then touted Emanuel, noting the crime-fighting role he had played in the Clinton White House. "That's why the Fraternal Order of Police and Chicago firefighters back Rahm Emanuel for Congress," Smulevitz said. "And I'd tell you that even if I weren't his uncle." The commercial ended with a photo of uniformed uncle with his arm around his candidate nephew. Emanuel won easily.

Axelrod became "a pillar of the community," in the words of Wilhelm. Axelrod and his wife created Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, a foundation to sponsor research into the disease that had disabled their first child, a daughter named Lauren, now 26. (They also have two sons.) They have raised more than $9 million, with help from numerous politicians, including Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Axelrod concluded years ago that he should never leave Chicago, and should particularly resist the temptation to move to Washington, where most big-time political consultants work and live. He thought, "I might be better at what I do if I lived somewhere where they didn't talk about the Federal Register over dinner." He also liked his role in Chicago, where instead of seeking business, he can now wait for politicians to come to him.
The Obama Connection

In 2002 one of the politicians who sought him out was a boyish state senator from the South Side named Barack Obama, who was contemplating a race for the U.S. Senate. They had met in the early 1990s and liked each other. Axelrod had counseled him to skip the Senate race and wait for a chance to run for mayor, but Obama didn't want to wait.

Axelrod had discussed working for another candidate for the Senate seat that came open in 2004, a wealthy newcomer named Blair Hull who was prepared to spend millions on a race. But Axelrod didn't like him, and was eager to work with Obama -- initially for a small fee. When he began his campaign, Obama had "not a sou" in the bank, in the words of former congressman and appeals court judge Abner Mikva, an early Obama supporter. Mikva was impressed that the big-time consultant would go to work for Obama without any assurance that he would make any money.

"My involvement was a leap of faith," Axelrod later told Obama's biographer, David Mendell. Axelrod had fallen for another candidate -- fallen hard. "I thought that if I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life."

Instead of a typical business relationship, the two men and their wives have become close friends. According to Mikva, it was Axelrod who persuaded Michelle Obama to approve the idea of her husband running for president. When Mikva called Axelrod earlier this year to complain that the candidate looked exhausted and needed some rest, Axelrod rejected the implicit accusation that he was abusing Obama: "He's my friend, too, you know," he told Mikva.

The Obama presidential campaign has now taken over this fan's life. "It has really played havoc with my basketball and baseball," Axelrod acknowledges. But he has never before had a rooting interest in such a high-stakes game. Nor has he had a candidate he could root for with such enthusiasm -- one he could compare to Robert F. Kennedy. "You never want to compare yourself to an iconic figure like that, and Obama doesn't, but the spirit of possibility in difficult times is a powerful thing," Axelrod says. "And I see that again."

Howie P.S.: Another story with a sports angle,"Obama's Hoosier Hoop Dreams: The Lessons of P-I-G."

Barack Obama

"Axelrod is key word for Obama, Patrick"

Chicago Tribune:

Barack Obama and Deval Patrick share more than common ideas about politics and a similar way of phrasing their thoughts from time to time.

They also share an important friend, Democratic consultant David Axelrod, a political wordsmith and admaker who helped Patrick become governor of Massachusetts and who is now a key player in the run for president by Obama, a senator from Illinois.

Obama rival Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York thinks Axelrod is "putting words in both of their mouths," noting similarities in some of Obama's and Patrick's comments in speeches.

But Axelrod, a Chicagoan, said Tuesday he had "nothing to do with" the similarities and they simply show that the two politicians share a similar outlook.

"One thing I emphatically deny is authorship of those lines or any of the great lines that Barack and Deval Patrick use," Axelrod said in an interview. "I had to come to grips early on in my relationship with Barack Obama that he was a far better writer than me, and the same is true with Deval Patrick."

The issue arose Monday when the Clinton campaign pointed out that words in an Obama speech Saturday recalled remarks by Patrick during his campaign for governor in 2006.

On Tuesday, a second example arose. A pair of videos cropped up on YouTube showing Patrick and Obama uttering almost the same line.

"I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me," Patrick says in the latest posting, a speech from 2006. "I'm asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

In the clip from a 2007 speech, Obama says, "I'm not just asking you to take a chance on me. I'm also asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Patrick has said he suggested that Obama use the lines that he borrowed over the weekend. And Obama frequently jokes about "trading lines" with Patrick, according to friends. In a December appearance in New Hampshire, ABC News quoted him attributing a line to the governor.

"I'm stealing this line from my buddy Deval Patrick, who stole a whole bunch of lines from me when he ran for the governorship," Obama reportedly said.

An aide to Obama said Tuesday that quote makes the senator's point.

"It is not a secret that Obama and Patrick trade lines all the time," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "They talk about just that fact all the time."

The Obama campaign is less sanguine about Clinton's use of words similar to Obama's. But asked by a reporter if she should face criticism for using Obama's phrase, "Fired up and ready to go," Clinton said, "Oh, that's kind of a silly comparison. That's a line that's been around a long time."

Obama and Patrick sometimes say similar things, Axelrod said, because "both of them are running -- and have run in the past -- challenges to the established political order."

"They are very good friends," he said. "I know that they talk about language all the time because, frankly, they're the two best writers in politics that I've ever known."

He said he works with both men because "they represent the kind of politics I believe in. I plead guilty to good taste."

Barack Obama

"The Obama Strategist"

National Journal:

Media consultant David Axelrod is the senior strategist for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. As Obama's closest and most influential political adviser, he helped propel him to the national stage with his successful Senate campaign of 2004.

Q: Given the questions that have been raised about Obama's experience, how do you make the case that he is the best person to lead the country in an unsafe world?

Axelrod: I was there in 2002 when he made his decision to oppose the war and gave what turned out to be an almost chillingly prescient critique [PDF] of why we shouldn't go. He talked about getting mired in a war of undetermined length and undetermined cost and undetermined consequences because of the ancient ethnic rivalries that we would unleash. And he talked about the fact that they were going to divert our attention from Al Qaeda. Now we know he was right on both counts. And it's that kind of judgment and insight that you want in a president of the United States.

And I think he has a deep, rich understanding of the world as someone who's lived in the world, as someone who has relatives overseas. He went to Africa and challenged the South Africans on HIV/AIDS, and went to the camps in Darfur and worked hard on that issue. He would bring a new face to American foreign policy that would help advance the cause of the country and make us more secure.

Q: Obama has had a great first act. But a lot of Democrats are getting impatient for a second act. Is a second act coming?

Axelrod: I would say the impatience is mostly among insiders in Washington. If you go out with Obama, when you see how people are reacting, how hungry they are for a different style of politics in this town, I think you'll see that there is a seamlessness to this. It isn't divided into acts.

We got in this race because this is a dysfunctional town that can't cope with the problems that are facing this country. And it is going to take a different style of leadership to change that.

Q: So is he going to keep saying what he's been saying all along, or will he move into a different theme or stage in his campaign?

Axelrod: I think that campaigns are evolutionary. But I also think this is not a campaign that is searching for a rationale. This is a campaign that began with a rationale and a very strong belief. And that's not going to change.

Q: It does look, despite all the money that Obama has raised, that you are stalled in the polls.

Axelrod: I don't believe that. I don't even accept that premise. The national polls have been fairly consistent. But this is a sequential process, and we're concentrating our effort in the states where the race is going to begin. And all the signs in these states are positive. The enthusiasm level is high; the organizations are strong. So we are right on target where we want to be. Our goal is not to win national polls in June. Our goal is to win primaries and caucuses in January and February.

Q: Three and a half years ago, Howard Dean electrified the netroots. He raised a surprisingly large amount of money and then fizzled in the end. How is Obama '08 different from Dean '04?

Axelrod: I don't know if you've seen -- and this is not in any way to denigrate [Democratic National Committee] Chairman Dean -- Howard Dean and Barack Obama side by side. But I don't think anybody would mistake the two. Barack Obama is a very inspiring, charismatic leader, who I think gives people great hope about our country. And I think that's ultimately what people are looking for.

I also think there are other factors there. Obviously, Senator Obama has a unique base. That'll be helpful in this campaign.

Q: What is that unique base?

Axelrod: I think he has a strong base in the African-American community that in some states is going to be very, very helpful. That is a fundamental difference. But the basic difference is that these are two different people, and they have two different styles.

Q: You've been quoted as saying Obama will "heal the nation." What exactly does that mean?

Axelrod: We've seen the polar ideologies take our politics hostage, and we can't come to sensible compromises. And we've seen great disillusionment among people as money has become more and more important in policies in Washington, where lobbyists are now writing our laws, rules, and regulations to a degree we've never seen before. All are wounds to our country that have to be healed.

Q: You've known Obama longer and better in his political life than anyone else. What is it that you know about him that you need to get across?

Axelrod: I think, ultimately, a person is defined by the choices they make in their lives. His choice was to leave college and go back and take a job as a community organizer in Chicago. He went back to law school, headed up the Harvard Law Review, and turned down all the big-money offers and went back to Chicago to head a voter-registration project to defend civil rights. He went to the state Senate and passed dozens of really significant, landmark bills that touched people's lives -- tax relief for low-income workers; expanded health care; fixing a broken death-penalty law; dealing with racial profiling in a way that was unprecedented. He did it by building consensus instead of blowing up bridges.

The second thing that I think is an important thread throughout his career is that he is always trying to make government work for people instead of special interests. He passed the first campaign finance reform in Illinois in three generations. He came to the [U.S.] Senate and pushed for ethics reforms that, frankly, both parties opposed, including disclosure by lobbyists of who they are raising money from and who they are giving money to -- probably the single most important reform that was passed this year. So I think people need to know where he's come from, what he's done, what his public values are. I think it separates him from the tawdry ethics that we have become too accustomed to in our politics.

Q: NJ: Despite her high negatives, Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to have solidified her lead in current national polls. Does Obama have to do something to pull ahead of her, or does she have to stumble, or both?

Axelrod: I'm not concerned about national polls. I think when [voters] learn more about the candidates, and they hear what Obama's thoughts are about where we should take this country, I think they are going to decide that he is the person who can do that. That is the real question about change. As he says, "Change is not just a slogan." Real change requires more than words.

He is not of Washington; he comes from a different orientation. It's true that if long lineage in Washington politics is a requirement for being president, he won't be the president. But if an ability to challenge broken politics, to challenge insider trading in politics, to challenge divisiveness and polarization are what people are looking for, I think he is the obvious choice.

Q: Does he represent change more than she does?

Axelrod: I think he represents change more than any of the other people. No one brings the kind of background and history that he does. No one brings, I think, the sense of identification with people who are struggling to be heard. Yes, I do. I think he represents change in a much bolder and more meaningful way.

Q: In every election, candidates try to downplay Iowa, and it almost never works. How important is winning Iowa to Obama's success?

Axelrod: We have to do well in Iowa. I'm not going to set the bar. I'll let others decide that. We saw that there were people in Senator Clinton's camp who wanted to abandon Iowa, and they ultimately decided that she couldn't do that. So Iowa is very, very important. We take it very seriously. It's a neighboring state to Illinois, so we feel a kinship with Iowa.

Now, Senator [John] Edwards has been camped out there for five years. And he's got a lot of good relationships there and a lot of strength. He should not be underestimated.

Q: What state do you see Obama winning that John Kerry did not?

Axelrod: I think he can and will win every state that Senator Kerry did. I think there are other states that he will win, starting with Ohio. But I think he will put other states in play that no other [Democrat] can put in play. There is no doubt that the energy and enthusiasm in the African-American community will give us a chance in some Southern states where there is a high number of African-American voters, and some who are not necessarily registered to vote. We can increase that registration, we can increase that turnout, and put those states in play.

The other thing is that if you look at these national polls, unlike some of the other candidates, he has enormously high positives and relatively low negatives. If half the voters have an unfavorable impression of you, you are already into a very dangerous area. We don't have that issue.