Spotlight on Axelrod

March 18th, 2008 at 03:25pm Aaron Chambers

David Axelrod is the Chicago-based mastermind behind U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The political consultant has long been well known to Illinois political insiders, with clients like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and insiders of national politics too, with a slew of congressional races and other high-profile races behind him.

Now the behind-the-scenes campaign guru is gaining a celebrity of his own.

In the most recent in a series of Axelrod profiles, Business Week looks at Axelrod’s other consulting firm, ASK Public Strategies. The firm has worked mostly in secret, though its clients have included ComEd and AT&T. Just as Axelrod’s well-known firm, AKP&D Message and Media, is focused on aiding the campaigns of Democratic candidates, ASK is geared toward the (super-secret) interests of corporations.

ASK’s predilection for operating in the shadows shows up in its work. On behalf of ComEd and Comcast, the firm helped set up front organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads. Industry insiders call such practices “Astroturfing,” a reference to manufacturing grassroots support. Alderman Brendan Reilly of the 42nd Ward, who has been battling the Children’s Museum’s relocation plans, describes ASK as “the gold standard in Astroturf organizing. This is an emerging industry, and ASK has made a name for itself in shaping public opinion and manufacturing public support.”

ASK’s Web site says little about the firm’s activities. AKP&D’s Web site, on the other hand, is loaded with info, including the firm’s impressive client list.

Perhaps the more comprehensive profile of Axelrod appeared last spring in the New York Times Magazine. It walks through the evolution of Axelrod’s career, from his days as a Chicago Tribune reporter to campaign aide for the late U.S. Paul Simon of Illinois to chief strategist for Obama’s presidential race.

When the first major profile of Axelrod appeared in Chicago magazine in 1987, three years after he left a high-profile job as the lead political reporter for The Chicago Tribune to work as a political operative, the article (“Hatchet Man: The Rise of David Axelrod”) began by comparing him to an “exotic rodent.”

The Times Magazine story continues:

Two decades later, there remains the matter of the comb-over and the damp mustache, but his looks seem less important now. In the last four years, Axelrod has helped steer campaigns for fully four of the Democrats now running for president — Obama, Clinton, John Edwards and Chris Dodd — and one who dropped out (Tom Vilsack); framed the messages for the new young governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick; and served as the chief political adviser for Representative Rahm Emanuel when the congressman helped orchestrate the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives last fall.

The Washington Post also profiled Axelrod last February.

A measure of his status in the top tier of Democratic spinners, scripters and fixers is that when his peers detect something subtle and good, they presume Axelrod must have had a hand in it.

Of course Axelrod won’t take credit for specific lines. Consultants are supposed to stay in the background. “One thing I came to realize early in the process of working with Barack was, he was always going to be the best writer in the room,” Axelrod says. “If you appreciate words and the power of them, he’s a wonderful person to work with. . . . I’d say 80 percent of what he did on that platform on Saturday was in that initial draft,” which Obama had e-mailed to Axelrod at about 4 a.m. Thursday.

The liberal Nation weekly also weighed in last February. And if you’re looking for video, here is PBS’s Charlie Rose’s interview with Axelrod. A Tribune profile, complete with video, is here.

From the Trib:

By 1984, while still in his 20s, David Axelrod had already built an impressive career as a star political reporter, columnist and City Hall bureau chief for the Tribune, the largest and most influential newspaper in Illinois.

It was his dream job. But he was unhappy.

Always awash with doubts and anxieties, Axelrod would agonize over the nuances of the stories he was writing, putting in long hours in the city’s wards doing research and then spending hours more at the computer keyboard. But that was who he was.

Entry Filed under: Barack Obama, Illinois politics