The Man Who Wields a Lead-Weighted Beanbag for Obama
The Man Who Wields a Lead-Weighted Beanbag for Obama
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: November 2, 2012
CHICAGO — Almost exactly four years ago, when President Obama was on the cusp of winning the White House, he spoke emotionally about David Axelrod, the strategist who guided him from the Illinois State Senate to the pinnacle of national politics. He praised Mr. Axelrod for his “basic take” on “how politics should be able to draw on our best and not our worst.”
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Mr. Axelrod talking to reporters in Boca Raton, Fla., after the final presidential debate. Friends said he took the first debate harder than he let on.
The other day, toward the bitter end of one of the most negatively fought presidential campaigns in modern memory, Mr. Axelrod was asked over breakfast here how that whole thing had turned out.
“I mean, look, what’s the old expression? ‘Politics isn’t beanbag,’ ” Mr. Axelrod said, digging into a greasy egg dish he knew he shouldn’t have ordered but, well, it’s nearly the end and sometimes stress must be fed. Noting that both campaigns have their share of political warriors, he added, “There are no ingénues in this battle.”
For more than a decade, Mr. Axelrod and Mr. Obama have formed one of the most famous partnerships in presidential politics, like those of Karl Rove and George W. Bush, Michael K. Deaver and Ronald Reagan, and James A. Farley and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Where Mr. Axelrod honed and protected the idealism that defined Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, he has been an important force driving the combativeness of Mr. Obama’s campaign of 2012, embodying how their hope to change the system has given way to a more traditional reliance on partisan muscle in this, their final campaign together.
It is through Mr. Axelrod that the story of Mr. Obama’s perhaps inevitable evolution can best be tracked. Those who know Mr. Axelrod say that he, like Mr. Obama, is a man of ideals but also a street fighter who wants to win — and has proved himself willing to take off the gloves in these closing weeks of the campaign to protect his friend’s legacy before Mr. Axelrod heads off to start an academic institute dedicated to his craft at the University of Chicago.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us/politics/axelrod-sets-more-combative-tone-for-obama-in-2012.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=politics&
