Axelrod says Obama's calm demeanor will serve country well
MISERICORDIA | Speaks at fund-raiser for group home where developmentally disabled daughter lives
Even at the lowest points of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama kept a cool demeanor that allowed him to prevail, his campaign strategist David Axelrod said Monday, offering a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the campaign.
Speaking at Misericordia home for the developmentally disabled, where Axelrod's daughter 27-year-old daughter Lauren lives, Axelrod talked about the "terrible day last March" when Obama lost the Democratic primary elections in Texas and Ohio.
(AP)
"The next day, Sen. Obama showed up at campaign headquarters and he went around to every desk -- and there were a lot of young volunteers. He told them they were doing a great job, and don't be discouraged," Axelrod said.
Then Obama went into a meeting with the senior staff and he told them, "I can think of a dozen things I could have done better in the past few weeks and I'm sure you could all think of a dozen things you could have done better." Axelrod called it "a very productive discussion."
"As he got up to leave, he stopped and turned around and said, 'I want you to know, I'm not yelling at you,'" Axelrod said. "Then he went a few more paces, and he turned again and said to us, 'After blowing $20 million in two weeks, I could yell at you. But I'm not yelling at you.'" That mild-mannered admonishment was more effective than yelling would have been, Axelrod said.
A week later, the videotapes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery speeches hit the airwaves -- another low in the campaign.
Obama was flying to Chicago to meet with the editorial boards of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune to put out the long-smoldering fires about Obama's relationship with convicted wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko.
Obama did not want to divorce himself from Wright, his long-time friend and pastor. But Wright's speech snippets in which he said "God damn America" among other things were playing on an endless loop on cable television.
"He said, 'I want to give a speech about race. I want to do it by Monday or Tuesday. I'm going to write it,'" Axelrod said. Axelrod told Obama his schedule would make that difficult. But Obama put his kids to bed and started writing, from about 10 p.m. to about 3 a.m.
They flew the next morning to Philadelphia where he would give the speech.
Obama started writing again in his hotel room.
"Having nothing to contribute, I went to sleep," Axelrod said. About 2 a.m. Axelrod awoke to read a copy of the speech on his Blackberry.
"I read this beautiful, moving speech and I messaged him back and said, 'This is why you should be president,'" Axelrod said.
Despite the speech, Obama ultimately had to more forcefully renounce Wright.
A little more than a week before the election, Obama gave a lunchtime speech at a War Memorial in Indianapolis. Axelrod looked at the memorial and told a reporter he really thought Obama could win that traditionally Republican state.
"This is a beautiful war memorial here, but we're not just here to look at this -- the battle is joined here," Axelrod told the Sun-Times that day.
But on Monday morning, Axelrod revealed that conversation, he was given some very discouraging poll numbers.
"I was the skunk at the garden party that day," Axelrod said. But Obama did not let himself get discouraged and ended up narrowly winning the Hoosier State.
Obama's even temper was evident throughout the campaign, Axelrod said.
"He never gets too high and he never gets too low," Axelrod said.
Axelrod said this election in many ways mirrored Republican Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980, when the electorate was also hungry for a big change because they felt Washington had grown "out of touch" with the people.
And as with Reagan, the real test would be the debate when voters would see if they really felt the agent of change was a man they could trust, Axelrod said. They did in Reagan's one debate with President Jimmy Carter and they did with Obama after the first debate with John McCain, Axelrod said.
"After that first debate with McCain, we were never behind again, from a polling perspective," Axelrod said.
On Monday, Axelrod sat between Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Misericordia Executive Director Sr. Rosemary Connelly at the $500-a-plate fund-raising breakfast. Many of Axelrod's Chicago friends rose to praise him as the brains behind Obama's win.
Axelrod assured them and his daughter he was not really 'moving' to Washington to be Obama's senior advisor.
"I'm merely a Chicagoan on assignment," he said.
"I've heard Dave Axelrod described as a political genius," Connelly said.
"Misericordia knows David and his wife Susan as loving parents." Connelly also spoke of the waiting list to get into Misericordia and how much more the facility could do with more resources.
Axelrod's daughter presented him with a painting she drew of the White House. "I'm going to look at this picture of the White House on my wall every day and that's going to remind me of that," Axelrod said.