David Axelrod (political consultant)

Infobox Person
name = David Axelrod

---

image_size =
caption = David Axelrod talking to reporters in the "spin room" after a 2008 Democratic primary debate
birth_name = David Axelrod
birth_date = 1955
birth_place = Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York
death_date =
death_place =
education = University of Chicago, A.B. 1977

David Axelrod is an American political consultant based in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known as a top adviser to Barack Obama, first in Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Illinois and currently as chief strategist for Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

Axelrod is the senior partner of AKP&D Message and Media and was a political writer for the "Chicago Tribune". He operates ASK Public Strategies, a company that allegedly engages in "astroturfing" [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] . He is also a supporter of Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who helped Axelrod found his firm (under the name Axelrod and Associates).

Early life and career

Axelrod was born to Jewish parents in 1955 in New York City and grew up in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. He went to P.S. 40. Axelrod's father was a psychologist and avid baseball fan.cite news
url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050103509.html?nav=hcmodule
title=The Player at Bat - David Axelrod, the Man With Obama's Game Plan, Is Also the Candidate's No. 1 Fan
first=Robert G.
last=Kaiser
publisher=The Washington Post
date=2008-05-02
accessdate=2008-05-06] His mother worked as a journalist at "PM," a left-wing 1940s newspaper. His parents separated when he was eight. Axelrod traces his political involvement back to his childhood. Describing the appeal of politics, he told the "Los Angeles Times", "I got into politics because I believe in idealism. Just to be a part of this effort that seems to be rekindling the kind of idealism that I knew when I was a kid, it's a great thing to do. [cite news
url=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-axelrod15feb15,1,2986209.story
title=The man behind Obama's message
publisher= Los Angeles Times
accessdate=2008-04-28
last= La Ganga
first= Maria L.
date= February 15, 2008] So I find myself getting very emotional about it." At just 13 years old, he was selling campaign buttons for Robert F. Kennedy.

After attending Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, Axelrod attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in political science. He met his future wife, business student Susan Landau, there. They were married in 1979. As an undergraduate, Axelrod wrote for the "Hyde Park Herald", covering politics, and picked up an internship at the "Chicago Tribune". They hired him when he graduated in 1977.

Career

At the age of 27, Axelrod became the City Hall Bureau Chief and a political columnist for the "Chicago Tribune". He worked at the Tribune for eight years, covering national, state and local politics. He became the youngest political writer there in 1981. [cite web
url=http://www.akpdmedia.com/partners/daxelrod.html
title=AKP&D MESSAGE AND MEDIA
publisher= www.akpmedia.com
accessdate= 2008-04-28
last=
first=] Unhappy with his prospects at the "Tribune", in 1984 he joined the campaign of US Senator Paul Simon as communications director; within weeks he was promoted to co-campaign manager. [cite news
last= Reardon
first= Patrick T.
url= http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070620axelrod-htmlstory,1,3883059.htmlstory
title= The Agony and the Agony
publisher= Chicago Tribune
date= June 24, 2007
accessdate= 08-04-22]

He formed a political consultancy, Axelrod & Associates, in 1985. In 1987, he worked on the successful reelection campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. This established his first experience in working with black politicians and he later became a key player in similar mayoral campaigns of blacks, including Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael R. White in Cleveland, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., Lee P. Brown in Houston, and John F. Street in Philadelphia. [cite news
last= Hayes
first= Christopher
url= http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes
title= Obama's Media Maven
publisher= The Nation
date= February 6, 2007
accessdate= 08-04-22] Axelrod is a longtime strategist for Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and styles himself a "specialist in urban politics."

In 2004, Axelrod worked for the presidential campaign of John Edwards. During the campaign, he lost responsibility for making ads, but continued as the campaign's spokesman. Regarding Edwards' failed 2004 presidential campaign, Axelrod has commented, "I have a whole lot of respect for John, but at some point the candidate has to close the deal and—I can’t tell you why—that never happened with John." [cite news
last= Montgomery
first= David
url= http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/14/AR2007021401812.html
title= Barack Obama's On-Point Message Man
publisher= Washington Post
date= February 15, 2007
accessdate= 08-04-22] [cite news
last= Wallace-Wells
first= Ben
url= http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t.html?ref=politics
title= Obama's Narrator
publisher= The New York Times
date= April 1, 2007
accessdate= 2008-04-22] ]

In 2006, Axelrod consulted for several campaigns, including for the successful campaigns of Eliot Spitzer in New York's gubernatorial election and for Deval Patrick in Massachusetts's gubernatorial election. Axelrod also served in 2006 as the chief political adviser for Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel for the U.S. House of Representatives elections, in which the Democrats gained 31 seats.

2008 presidential campaign

Axelrod and Barack Obama's ties reach back a decade. Axelrod met Obama in 1992 when Obama so impressed Betty Lu Saltzmann, a woman from Chicago's "lakefront liberal crowd," during a black voter registration drive he ran that she then introduced the two. Obama also consulted Axelrod before he delivered his famed 2002 anti-war speech [cite news
last = Becker
first = Jo
coauthors = Christopher Drew
title = Obama's Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side
publisher = The New York Times
date = May 11, 2008
url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11chicago.html?pagewanted=5&hp
accessdate = 2008-05-12] and asked him to read drafts of his book, "The Audacity of Hope". [cite news
last = Scott
first = Janny
title = Obama’s Story, Written by Obama
publisher = The New York Times
date = May 18, 2008
url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/us/politics/18memoirs.html?pagewanted=3&hp
accessdate = 2008-05-18]

Axelrod currently serves as the chief strategist and media adviser for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Axelrod contemplated taking a break from the 2008 presidential campaign, as five of the candidates—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Tom Vilsack—were past clients. Personal ties between Axelrod and Hillary Clinton also made it difficult, as she had done significant work on behalf of epilepsy causes for a foundation co-founded by Axelrod's wife, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE). (Axelrod's daughter suffers from developmental disabilities associated with chronic epileptic seizures.) Axelrod's wife even said that a 1999 conference Clinton convened on finding a cure for the condition was "one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy." [cite news | first=Ben | last=Wallace-Wells | coauthors= | title=A star strategist offers Democrats a new vision | date=March 30, 2007 | publisher= | url =http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/30/news/obama.php | work =International Herald Tribune| pages = | accessdate = 2008-05-06] Ultimately, however, he viewed Obama's potential candidacy as inspirational and historic. He often likens Obama to Robert F. Kennedy and told "The Washington Post", "I thought that if I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life."

Axelrod contributed to the initial announcement of Obama's campaign by creating a five-minute Internet video released January 16, 2007. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFBF5AeliNQ] He continued to use 'man on the street' style biographical videos to create intimacy and authenticity in the political ads.

While the Clinton campaign chose an incumbent strategy that emphasized experience, Axelrod helped to craft the Obama campaign's main theme of "change." Axelrod criticized the Clinton campaign's positioning by saying that "being the consummate Washington insider is not where you want to be in a year when people want change... [Clinton's] initial strategic positioning was wrong and kind of played into our hands." [cite news
url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080508/us_time/thefivemistakesclintonmade
title=The Five Mistakes Clinton Made
publisher= Time
accessdate=2008-05-08
last= Tumulty
first= Karen
date = May 08, 2008] The change message played a factor in Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Just over half of [Iowa's] Democratic caucus-goers said change was the No. 1 factor they were looking for in a candidate, and 51 percent of those voters chose Barack Obama," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. "That compares to only 19 percent of 'change' caucus-goers who preferred Clinton."cite news
url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/03/iowa.dems/index.html
title= Obama wins Iowa as candidate for change
publisher= CNN
accessdate=2008-05-08
last= Crowley
first= Candy
date = January 04, 2008] Axelrod also believed that the Clinton campaign underestimated the importance of the caucus states. "For all the talent and the money they had over there," says Axelrod, "they - bewilderingly - seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become." In the 2008 primary season, Obama won a majority of the states that use the caucus format.

Axelrod is credited with implementing a strategy that encourages the participation of people, a lesson drawn partly from the effectiveness of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign as well as a personal goal of Barack Obama. Axelrod explained to "Rolling Stone" magazine, "When we started this race, Barack told us that he wanted the campaign to be a vehicle for involving people and giving them a stake in the kind of organizing he believed in." [cite news
url=http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/obamamachineryofhope/page/2
title=The Machinery of Hope
publisher= Rolling Stone
accessdate=2008-04-28
last= Dickinson
first= Tim
date = March 20, 2008] This includes drawing on "Web 2.0" technology and viral media to support a grassroots strategy. Obama's web platform allows supporters to blog, create their own personal page, and even phonebank from home. Axelrod's elaborate use of the Internet has helped Obama to organize under-30 voters and build over 475,000 donors in 2007, most of whom were Internet donors contributing less than $100 each. [cite news | first=Sarah Lai | last=Stirland | coauthors= | title=The Tech of Obamamania: Online Phone Banks, Mass Texting and Blogs | date=February 14, 2008 | publisher= | url =http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/02/potomac_primaries
work =Wired | pages = | accessdate = 2008-02-21 | language = ] The Obama strategy stood in contrast to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which benefited from high name recognition, large donors and strong support among established Democratic leaders.

"The Politico" described Axelrod as 'soft-spoken' and 'mild-mannered' [ cite news
url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3213.html
title=The Democrats Turn Tough -- on Each Other
publisher= Politico.com
accessdate=2008-05-08
date = March 20, 2007
last= Simon
first= Roger] and it quoted one Obama aide in Chicago as saying, "Do you know how lucky we are that he is our Mark Penn?" [cite news
url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9891.html
title=Obama team remains unshaken and unstirred
publisher= Politico.com
accessdate=2008-04-28
date = April 27, 2008
last= Brown
first= Carrie Budoff] Democratic consultant and former colleague Dan Fee said of Axelrod, "He's a calming presence." [ cite news
url=http://www.philly.com/inquirer/politics/national/12923012.html
title=Helping hone Obama's pitch
publisher= Politico.com
accessdate=2008-05-07
date = December 30, 2007
last= Fitzgerald
first= Thomas] "He's not a screamer, like some of these guys," political advisor Bill Daley said of Axelrod in the "Chicago Tribune". "He has a good sense of humor, so he's able to defuse things." [ cite news
url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/magazine/chi-070620axelrod-htmlstory,0,3477242.htmlstory
title=The Agony and the Agony
publisher= Chicago Tribune
accessdate=2008-05-07
date = June 24, 2007
last= Reardon
first= Patrick T.]

In late April and early May, Barack Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright criticized Axelrod's influence on Obama. "The New York Times" reported that Wright said of Axelrod "while he was expert at promoting black candidates with white voters, he did not know much about relating to the black community...They're spiriting him away from people in the African-American community. David doesn't know the African-American church scene." [cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/us/politics/01wright.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
title=A Strained Wright-Obama Bond Finally Snaps
publisher= The New York Times
accessdate= 2008-05-01
date = May 1, 2008
last= Powell
first= Michael]

ASK Public Strategies

Axelrod operates a second business from the same office, ASK Public Strategies, that discreetly plots strategy and advertising campaigns for corporate clients to tilt public opinion their way. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] He and his partners are secretive about operations and won't reveal the client roster or revenue. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] Customers and public records confirm agency has run campaigns for the Chicago Children's Museum, ComEd, Cablevision, and AT&T. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] The firm helped set up front organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads, a practice that industry insiders call "Astroturfing" (manufacturing grassroots support). [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] Eric Sedler, 39, a former public relations director at AT&T and corporate-reputation specialist at PR giant Edelman, is the "S" in ASK and the company's managing partner. The "K" is John Kupper, 51, a former congressional press secretary and ad-industry consultant, while the "A," of course, is Axelrod. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] One TV commercial, penned by ASK, warned of a ComEd bankruptcy and blackouts without a rate hike and was sponsored by a group known as CORE, which describes itself on its Web site as "a coalition of individuals, businesses and organizations," but after a complaint was filed with state regulators, ComEd acknowledged that it had bankrolled the entire $15 million effort. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] Employees of the utility and its parent, Exelon, have contributed $181,711 to Obama's presidential bid, more than workers at any other company in the state. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest. [Obama’s Lobbyist ConnectionBy Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK [http://www.newsweek.com/id/138519] ] The firm also worked on behalf of Madison Square Gardens to stop plans for the construction of a football stadium for the Jets on New York's Westside. [The Secret Side of David Axelrod Businessweek Mar. 2008 [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htm] ] ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. [Obama’s Lobbyist ConnectionBy Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK [http://www.newsweek.com/id/138519] ] ASK last year proposed another "front" group campaign to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. quote|One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency. [Obama’s Lobbyist ConnectionBy Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK [http://www.newsweek.com/id/138519] ] The firm's work has also involved Michelle Obama's employer, the University of Chicago Hospital. She helped create a program, called the Urban Health Initiative, that hired ASK Public Strategies in 2007 to assist in marketing the plan to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. The plan has critics in the community, however, who see at as a way to dump costly patients and increase the hospital's bottom line. [University of Chicago shunning poor patients?: HOSPITAL DISPUTE: Obama's wife, 3 aides tied to plan to free up space by Tim Novak and Chris Fusco Chicago Sun Times August 23, 2008http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1122691,CST-NWS-hosp23.article] [Sourcewatch: A Project of the Center for Media and Democracy http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ASK_Public_Strategies]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.akpmedia.com/partners/daxelrod.html Partners: David Axelrod] , 2008 official bio page at subject's political consulting website
* [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070620axelrod-htmlstory,0,7217326.htmlstory The Agony and The Agony] , 2007 bio article from "Chicago Tribune"
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/27/barackobama.uselections20081 David Axelrod: Profile] , 2008 bio article by The Guardian of London, UK.

ASK Public Strategies Website http://askps.com/index.html