David Axelrod biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Political consultant and strategist. Most widely recognized for creating a winning campaign strategy for U.S. President Barack Obama. Born February 22, 1953, in Stuyvesant Town, New York, to parents Myril and Joseph Axelrod. His mother Myril was employed as a newspaper journalist and his father Joseph worked as a psychologist. Axelrod was motivated by a sense of idealism at an early age. At seven years old he witnessed an inspiring speech by John F. Kennedy in New York which would set his life on a political course. Axelrod credits this formative experience with arousing a life passion for politics, and in 1972 Axelrod moved to Illinois to study political science at the University of Chicago. There he met his future wife, Susan.

Passion for Politics

Upon graduating from college, Axelrod began working for the Chicago Tribune. In 1981, by the age of 27, he gained acclaim for being the youngest political writer in the newspaper's history. After eight years of political reporting, Axelrod left the paper to pursue a career in campaign consulting. Axelrod began to make a name for himself in 1984, when his campaign management team won Congressman Paul Simon a seat in the U.S. Senate. The following year, Axelrod capitalized on his knack for political campaign planning when he co-created the consulting firm Axelrod & Associates (later known as AKP&D Message and Media). Axelrod has since led successful campaigns for numerous Democrats, helping many politicians get elected at the local, state, and federal level. Axelrod's client roster includes such names as Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton.

Over the course of his career, David Axelrod has gained national repute for helping African-American politicians get elected in landmark victories. Axelrod's progressive liberalism; reputation for political idealism; and innovative bottom-up, technology-laden campaigning policies have made him a top political media expert with an aptitude for African-American campaigning. Axelrod's first significant experience in race-related campaigning was his work with Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in 1987. Washington's first campaign for mayor four years earlier had been a fervent struggle against racial prejudice, ending with Washington becoming the first African-American mayor in Chicago history. Thus when Mayor Washington hired Axelrod's company to manage his re-election campaign, Axelrod focused on preserving Washington's popularity amongst the African-American community while increasing the white vote from 8 percent in 1984 to 20 percent in 1987. Many believe that AKP&D Message and Media's campaign for Mayor Washington left a deep impression on David Axelrod to push for racial equality in politics.

Obama Campaign

And push he did, across decades and across all levels of government, culminating with Axelrod's most defining accomplishment to date: The media management of Barack Obama's 2008 race for U.S. President. Axelrod and Obama first met in 1992 working amongst Democratic leaders in Chicago. Obama was a community organizer, working on increasing voter registration in Chicago's underprivileged neighborhoods. In 2003 Barack Obama ignored Axelrod's advice to run for governor of Chicago, and instead convinced Axelrod to join his campaign as a strategist during his race for the Senate. Seeing great promise in young Obama, Axelrod was credited with assembling the campaign management team which succeeded in getting Obama elected as a U.S. Senator for Illinois in 2005.

When Barack Obama decided to run for the U.S.