David Axelrod
Biography and Quotes

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SENIOR ADVISOR DAVID AXELROD
David Axelrod is Senior Advisor to President Barack H. Obama. Prior to that, he served as Senior Advisor to the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition and Senior Strategist to Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency.

Since 1988, Axelrod has been Senior Partner at the consulting firm AKP&D Message and Media, based in Chicago. In that capacity, he managed media strategy and communications for more than 150 local, state, and national campaigns, with a focus on progressive candidates and causes.

In 2006, Axelrod ran the independent expenditure media program for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helping Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives. That same year, Axelrod served as media adviser to Deval Patrick, who was elected Massachusetts's first Democratic governor in 16 years and the state's first-ever African American governor. In 2004, when President Obama was a member of the Illinois State Senate, Axelrod helped him defeat a primary field of six other Democrats and go on to a landslide win in his U.S. Senate campaign.

Before entering politics in 1984, Axelrod spent eight years as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, where he covered national, state, and local politics. In 1981, he became the youngest political writer and columnist in the paper's history. He also served as the Tribune's City Hall bureau chief.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/staff/david_axelrod/

Damn the tea bags. A top adviser to President Barack Obama takes a dim view of last week's anti-tax "tea parties," promoted by organizers in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.

"The thing that bewilders me is this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. So I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face," David Axelrod said Sunday.

Axelrod was asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" for his opinion on what the show's host described as "this spreading and very public disaffection with not only the government, but especially the Obama administration."

Axelrod replied: "I think any time that you have severe economic conditions, there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy."

"Unhealthy?" the moderator repeated.

"This is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves. And so far these are expressions," Axelrod answered.

Axelrod Slams Anti-Tax Tea Parties
Sunday, April 19, 2009 3:25 PM
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/trashing_tea_parties/2009/04/19/204708.html

5. Obama's Secret Weapon

A top media consultant who has specialized in helping African-American candidates win elections could play a major role in the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

He is David Axelrod, a 51-year-old newspaper reporter turned consultant who was the key media strategist for Obama's senate campaign in Ohio. He wrote Obama's television ads and coined the "Yes We Can" slogan used by Obama and supporters of another Axelrod client, recently elected Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who like Obama is an African-American.

Axelrod – who handled John Edwards' 2004 presidential run – is now Obama's closest political adviser, and produced two recent videos posted to the presidential hopeful's Web site.

Since then Axelrod and his firm, now called AKP Media, has helped elect or re-elect a number of African-American mayors, including Harold Washington in Chicago, Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael White in Cleveland, Lee Brown in Houston, John Street in Philadelphia, and Anthony Williams in Washington, D.C.

Insider Report: Hillary, Obama Mean Big Media Dollars
Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/11/215900.shtml