David Axelrod

David Axelrod shoots down the Karl Rove comparisons

Axelrod: Not a Rove
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Republicans seem to be viewing the nascent Obama administration with some dread, half expecting Democrats to do to them what they've been receiving for the past eight years and more. So unsurprisingly, Karl Rove seemed to be on Chris Wallace's mind Sunday when he interviewed David Axelrod of the Obama team on Fox:

Chris Wallace: Finally, you are going to be the new senior adviser to the president -- I don't know if you're going to like this comparison, but are you going to be the Karl Rove of the administration, in the sense of the intersection of policy and politics?

David Axelrod: I've never accepted that comparison. Look, my role with Barack Obama for the past six years has been to help the communications operation impart his message, his values and his vision to the American people, and I expect to continue to do that. My role is circumscribed to those responsibilities.

I'm not trying to build the Democratic Party or any of these other -- I think Mr. Rove had quite an expansive portfolio. I think mine is very focused.




The Inner Circle

I have maintained that the Obama presidential campaign will be studied and dissected by political scientists for years to come. It is, quite simply, one of the most impressive implementations, not only of Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy, but of grassroots-level organizing that lifted the entire campaign of a serious longshot candidate right into the White House.

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft sat down with the executive team of campaign manager David Plouffe, chief strategist David Axelrod (who will move to the White House as Senior Advisor), senior aide Robert Gibbs (who will move to the White House as Press Secretary) and communications and research specialist Anita Dunn to discuss the campaign about 24 hours after victory. They touch on the amazing organizing at the local level, the paradigm-shifting strategy to ignore the red state/blue state divide and those moments that threatened to derail the campaign, like the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Full transcripts at 60Minutes.com


FNS-Axelrod-Davis-Access-101208
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After Rick Davis tried to downplay the news that Palin was found to have abused her power in Alasks with the Troopergate scandal, a heated exchange appeared on FNS with Chris Wallace, when Obama's campaign manager told McCain's camp guru Rick Davis that he's selling access for McCain to lobbyists...

Axelrod: Look I think the way you root out corruption in Washington is first take on the lobbyist culture and you know what we can't have are lobbyists making millions of dollars selling access to public officials as Rick has done selling access to Sen McCain. That is not how you clean up Washington.

Is it false that you sell access to Senator McCain. Do you sell access to Sen. McCain?

Davis immediately cuts him off and starts yelling at David. It was like this a lot. It's been reported over and over again that McCain's campaign is chock full of lobbyists who were paid off...How can Rick Davis talk about cleaning up DC when he's one of the leading causes of its downfall?

Davis floats around a new canard for McCain---that it'll be bad for America if the White House and Congress go to the Democratic party.
I know it would be just exquisite for Rick Davis if it all remained a total Republican Congress and White House just like before. He didn't complain when Bush and his cronies were rubber stamping each other.
If the country is lucky enough, we will have kicked out the people that are responsible for the political corruption that has helped destroy our economy and give us a chance to rebuild America....
And don't worry, the Conservatives will do everything they can to block any good piece of legislation anyway they can no matter who's in charge.


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We've shown before that since his naming as Tim Russert's interim replacement how completely one-sided Tom Brokaw has been in terms of Republican framing.   But this truly takes the cake.  After letting McCain spokesman (and Official WATB) Steve Schmidt let loose with a bunch of lies (more on that later) against Obama that campaign manager David Axelrod easily shows for the crap it is, Tom Brokaw in the interest of fairness cites an NBC/WSJ poll that says that more Americans think McCain is "best equipped" to be Commander in Chief.

AXELROD: What has happened is, as Sen. Obama predicted from the beginning, that we got distracted in Iraq and now Osama bin Laden, who is the person who attacked the United States, killed 3,000 American citizens is now resurgent. He is stronger and that is the result of the misbegotten decisions of John McCain and he stubbornly wants to continue, even as the Iraqis won't take responsibility, sitting on $79 billion of their own surplus, while we spend $10 billion a month. It doesn't make sense. We can't take more of the same, Steve.

BROKAW: In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note and that is that we continue to poll on who is best equipped to be Commander in Chief, John McCain continues to lead in that category, despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC/WSJ poll.

See, here's the problem, Tom.  I have the latest NBC/WSJ poll (.pdf) taken September 19-22.  Guess what?  THOSE NUMBERS AREN'T IN THERE.  Pulled out of thin air, or an orifice of your choice.  In fact, in the MSNBC.com political coverage of this poll, the headline read: Obama Up 2 in NBC/WSJ Poll.  So where exactly are these numbers, Tom?  If you go to Gallup, the lead is even stronger (50 to 42%), which is pretty close to the numbers you attributed to McCain.

So Tom Brokaw -- in the interest of fairness to whom exactly, I'm unclear, since he is deliberately MISinforming the public -- tries to mitigate Axelrod's deft defense of Obama's judgment by lying and saying that most people believe McCain is still better equipped to be Commander in Chief. You can leave a comment at the Meet The Press Comment Form on Brokaw's campaigning on behalf of McCain.

And by the way, Schmidt's assertion that McCain called for Rumsfeld's resignation?  Big fat, stinking lie.  From the Obama campaign: 

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