President’s Political Protector Is Ever Close at Hand

[babylonsister]

President’s Political Protector Is Ever Close at Hand

By JEFF ZELENY
Published: March 8, 2009



WASHINGTON — The pepperoni and cheese pizzas had been delivered, and a meeting about how to sell President Obama’s economic plan was set to begin — not at the White House, but a few blocks away in the seventh-floor apartment of David Axelrod.

Mr. Axelrod took a seat in his living room, with the Washington Monument visible in the distance, and asked how the president’s proposals were being received in the country. He went around the room, calling on a cluster of strategists who were on hand to discuss the latest batch of polls and focus groups conducted for the White House.

It is known as the Wednesday Night Meeting, an invitation-only session for a handful of advisers, nearly all of whom played a key role in paving Mr. Obama’s path to the Oval Office. The location varies, but in a recent week Mr. Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, was feeling under the weather, so a group that he says is “like family to me” met at his place.

“It helps clarify my thinking to talk to people who I have faith in,” Mr. Axelrod said, reluctantly describing the weekly meetings he had hoped to keep under wraps so he would not suddenly be overrun by requests from people hoping to dispense advice.

The two-hour sessions are just one way in which Mr. Axelrod is making the transition from Chicago political consultant to the White House. His title does little to capture his full importance to Mr. Obama. His voice, and political advice, carry more weight than most anyone else’s on the president’s payroll.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/us/politics/09axelrod.html?_r=1&ref=politics

[WeDidIt]

1. EAT THAT, Karl Rove!

:evilgrin:

[Cha]

2. The Axe cleans

up nice:)

[TTUBatfan2008]

3. LOL! This part was great...

Gone are the leather jacket and wrinkled plaid shirts he wore during the campaign. He has four new suits — and an array of neckties — for his new position. The wardrobe caught the president’s eye at a recent White House dinner for the nation’s governors.

“Everybody looks extraordinary,” Mr. Obama said. “Even Axelrod has cleaned up pretty well.”