Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

by David Axelrod

  The ’84 convention was memorable for one more reason. The dispatching of Pazzi complete, I accompanied the Simons to the hall to hear the keynote speech by New York’s governor, Mario Cuomo.

  Cuomo had won an upset victory in 1982, after defeating New York City’s popular mayor Ed Koch in the primary, and was emerging as the dynamic, new voice of American liberalism. His keynote didn’t disappoint. In a muscular critique, Cuomo assailed Reagan’s gauzy characterization of America as “a shining city on the hill.”

  “A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well,” said Cuomo, with the timing and cadence of a master orator. “But there’s another city; another part to the shining city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages, and most young people can’t afford one; where students can’t afford the education they need and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.”

  Cuomo, the son of immigrants, went on to paint the Democratic alternative in hopeful, uplifting language that brought the hall to its feet and, at least for that one night, gave the party faithful the courage to believe.

  I learned from his star turn how, overnight, a single, soaring convention speech, viewed by tens of millions, could instantly transform a relatively unknown politician into a potential presidential candidate. Though Cuomo never ran for president, his name stayed at the top of the Democratic wish list until he finally demurred.

  Part of my job as campaign manager was to deal with the pols and press I knew so well from my days at the Trib. Once a scribe, now I was spending a good deal of time in front of cameras and mikes and working the phones. Though just in our twenties, Wilhelm and I also had the responsibility of keeping our equally young staff up and focused. My principal job, though, was as strategist, overseeing the development and execution of the campaign’s message, that fundamental argument for Simon’s election over Percy. I had studied campaign messaging since I was a kid. Now I had the chance to craft one.

  I worked with our researchers to probe every aspect of Percy’s record, however obscure. An abstruse technical vote he had cast in committee in 1980, for example, allowed us to say that Percy had cast the deciding vote in favor of President Carter’s grain embargo against the Russians that Congressman Simon had opposed. This would become fodder for press hits, direct mail, and TV ads in normally Republican downstate Illinois, where grain farmers abounded. We charted several shifts of position Percy had made to retrofit himself to the liking of Reagan-era Republicans, a disturbing litany for the suburban swing voters who had prized his independence and moderation, and a counterpoint to Simon, whose views were as constant and reliable as the classic old wristwatch he wore.

  We looked for every opportunity to highlight how the economic policies Percy supported, and Simon opposed, had failed to benefit the state and its working people. No plant closing or round of layoffs escaped our radar. We eagerly foraged the monthly economic reports for evidence to support our case, and charted every speech or interview in which Percy, eager to latch on to Reagan, continued to tout economic policies that had done little for Illinois.

  From early morning to after midnight, seven days a week, I would be anchored at the campaign headquarters. I would brief Simon for interviews, speeches, and debates; meet with press staff and field operatives to package messages; and sign off on the direct mail and phone calls the campaign employed. Most interesting to me, I worked closely with the campaign’s media consultants, Bob Squier and Carter Eskew, to help fashion the television and radio ads. These two were at the top of the game when it came to campaign media, and it was a chance to learn from the best.

  I loved the energy, pace, and camaraderie of the campaign, which was intense from start to finish, with a flood of negative ads and a series of no-holds-barred debates in which Percy, fighting for his political life, effectively pilloried the folksier Simon.

  With the one major televised debate approaching, and the race polling close, Simon was determined not to let Percy push him around again. He summoned Squier, whose acid wit and vast campaign experience were invaluable assets, to lead the prep sessions and arm him with an arsenal of barbed lines.

  The debate was ornery from the start, with words such as sleazy and liar flying freely. And for all of Squier’s diabolically creative, scripted attacks, Simon wound up ad-libbing the single most memorable line of the evening. Accusing Percy of repeatedly mischaracterizing his positions, Simon noted that each of them was hard of hearing. “I’ll make a deal with you, Chuck,” he said. “I’ll turn up my hearing aids if you’ll turn up yours!”

  Simon gave as good as he got in the final debate, which was punctuated by gasps and groans from the prim League of Women Voters audience, affronted by the rancorous and personal tone. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones who took offense.

  A few days later, and little more than two weeks before the election, I got a call in the middle of the night from our pollster. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “The bottom’s dropped out. We were three down. Now it’s eleven. It isn’t all the debate, but that sure didn’t help.” In savaging Percy, Simon had undermined the aura of decency and character that had always been his greatest strength. Now less than 30 percent of Illinois voters expressed a positive view of either candidate.

  The consultants reacted with the state-of-the art advice: go all negative, all the time. Squier had a few scathing spots ready to go. Yet it seemed to me that, in this rancid environment for which we bore some of the responsibility, we needed to get out of the mud bath and remind people why they liked Simon in the first place.

  Squier, who was the reigning king of Democratic media consultants in Washington, with a large trophy case of victories attesting to his political acumen (or at least his shrewd choice of candidates) was skeptical of that direction—and of the young novice who was giving it—but we arrived at a compromise, splitting our buy between positive and negative ads.

  My idea was simple: a direct-to-camera spot in which Simon returned to first principles, affirming his liberal views about the necessary and positive role of government, for which he had always stood, through high tide and low. Eskew and I collaborated on a script.

  “There are a lot of pressures to sell out in politics, so you have to know what you believe and be ready to fight for it,” Simon began. “I still believe in what America has always been about—hope; that we have an obligation to leave the next generation something better than what we found. Government must do its part—not just for the rich and powerful, but for all Americans. My opponent says that makes me old-fashioned. But I’d rather lose with principle than win by standing for nothing.

  “I want to be a senator you can count on.”

  The last, unorthodox lines, which I added, stirred quite a debate among the consultants and within the campaign. Many were nervous about what would be Simon’s public acknowledgment that fidelity to his principles could cost him the election. “I don’t like it,” Squier grumped. “Sends a bad signal.”

  But the message was bigger than that. By declaring that there were things for which he was willing to lose, Simon provided a welcome counterpoint to Percy, who was widely viewed as a political chameleon willing to change colors to win. Yet on Election Night, the early returns were ominous. Television exit polls showed Percy winning, and he even gave an interview claiming victory. Simon, honest to a fault, shrugged uncertainly as he entered our Election Night headquarters when waiting reporters asked him how he felt. Still, Wilhelm and his team felt we were hitting our marks, and they were right. Simon, the unapologetic liberal, would win by eighty-nine thousand votes, even while Ronald Reagan swept Illinois in a landslide. One-fifth of Reagan’s supporters split their votes, choosing Simon over Percy, and many of Paul’s neighbors in Southern Illinois split their tickets, choosing Reagan and their local favorite.

&n
bsp; Less than six months out of the newspaper business, I had survived my baptism of fire. Well, a lot more than survived. A campaign I led had defied the betting odds and campaign orthodoxies to elect a very good man and someone in whom I deeply believed. And for all the bashing back and forth, we won in the end by appealing to hope; by projecting the ideal of one American community in which everyone gets a fair shot. That’s what Simon believed, and by forthrightly expressing it, he defeated not just an opponent on the ballot, but also the cynical political calculus of the day.

  It was a heady moment, but one I couldn’t share with the person closest to me. Susan was home with our two infants, Lauren and Michael, who had barely seen their dad in months—and they wouldn’t for another two days. Lauren was struggling with the impact of her epilepsy; Mike, for his fair share of attention; and Susan was exhausted and ground down. Yet instead of going home for a long-planned, postelection dinner with my family, I stayed downtown and spent the next day and night celebrating with colleagues and taking media bows.

  My memories of my exhilarating breakthrough in politics—the heady rookie-of-the-year notions I entertained—are tempered by my embarrassment and shame over how completely self-absorbed I was at that moment. I am sure that, that night, Susan was recalling Jeanne Simon’s admonition about life in politics and wondering if our marriage would survive. It only did because of her forbearance and determination to make it work.

  Now I had to decide what to do next.

  I had agreed, when I joined the Simon campaign, to become the vice president of an up-and-coming Chicago public relations firm, Jasculca Terman and Associates, which had been founded by two good friends who were veterans of the Carter-Mondale administration. Their offer gave me the security to leave the Tribune, knowing I would have a job after the campaign. Yet when the campaign ended, I knew that corporate public relations was not the path for me—nor was becoming an aide to Simon. Campaigns held out more excitement for me than government. I loved their energy, communal spirit, and win-or-go-home urgency. And now I saw the possibility of making a decent living doing them.

  When a wealthy Simon donor offered to back me in a new political consulting firm, I was intrigued—until he told me the conditions: I couldn’t work against any candidate, Republican or Democrat, who was a strong supporter of Israel, he said—even if the rest of their record was abysmal. I said thanks, but no thanks. If I started my own firm to produce campaign strategy and media, I wasn’t going to hand anyone veto power over the candidates or causes we would represent.

  So with Forrest Claypool as my junior partner, I borrowed a small room in the downtown law offices of one of Simon’s ardent supporters, and Axelrod and Associates was born.

  PART TWO

  FIVE

  STRATEGIST FOR HIRE

  OF ALL THE CAREERS I imagined for myself, “businessman” would have ranked about 101st on my Top 100 countdown. Yet here I was at the helm of a start-up.

  Encouraged by the Simon victory, I saw the chance to do well and do good at the same time. I knew there was a better living to be made in campaign consulting than I had enjoyed as a reporter. I believed in my capacity to design and execute winning campaign messages and advertising—a bold claim, since I had exactly one race under my belt. Still, I relished the chance to prove it at the highest levels.

  Yet in January 1985, despite my auspicious debut, the “highest levels” still seemed a long way up. Forrest and I began by begging our way into long-shot races for small, local offices that were appropriate for a firm with no real track record, led by guys with no formal training.

  Our first winning race was for one of those long shots. Chuck Bernardini was a reform-minded candidate for the Cook County Board of Commissioners, a legislative backwater traditionally dominated by machine candidates. To try to break through, I wrote a series of comedic radio ads to burnish Bernardini’s name in the minds of voters. The playful ads starred a local improv actor named Dan Castellaneta, who would become famous a few years later as the voice of Homer Simpson.

  We almost pulled off a much bigger upset in that first campaign cycle by nearly defeating future Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who was making his first bid for Congress in an overwhelmingly Republican, exurban district.

  Riding a populist wave over high utility rates, we entered the remaining weeks with our candidate, a nurse and county coroner named Mary Lou Kearns, in a position to win. Yet on the final weekend, thousands of mailings landed on the district’s doorsteps recounting salacious accusations against Kearns, who had been part of a messy divorce. Though the mailings were unsigned, and Hastert disavowed them, he advanced to Congress on the tide of this scurrilous, eleventh-hour smear effort.

  Small-gauge though they were, these early races were fun and exciting, and gave us the chance to cut our teeth as political strategists and ad makers. I loved all of it: the creative challenge of scriptwriting; the long hours I spent directing actors in recording studios; choosing scenes in darkened film-editing suites. TV was a new medium for me, but a familiar challenge: tell stories in ways that are attention-grabbing and authentic. I had learned how to be a newspaperman by doing exactly that, and with the help of local producers, I would learn the ropes as a media consultant.

  In making that leap, I found my background as a reporter enormously helpful. Obviously, that experience was useful in advising candidates on how to frame their stories and respond to the stories conceived by others. More than that, I had spent several years examining campaigns throughout this rich and diverse country, armed with questions aimed at understanding the unique dynamics of each race. I brought that same approach to my job as a consultant, probing to understand the critical and often shifting dynamics of the candidates, voters, and venues wherever I worked.

  Every race is different, but the protocol is the same: Understand fully the array of arguments that could be made for and against your candidate, test them in polling, and cull the two or three that are most meaningful and that will have the greatest impact on the targeted voters you need to win. Then weave those arguments into a larger, authentic narrative that communicates who your candidate is and why he or she is running. In the end, campaigns are always a choice. Why should a voter choose Candidate A over Candidate B? The winning campaign is generally the one that dictates the terms of that choice by defining what the race is about.

  A reporter’s ability to listen, probe, and gather information served me well. The art of storytelling was indispensable. And my high profile in Chicago political circles, both from reporting and from Simon’s victory, gave us a leg up on other fledgling firms in the competition for clients. While most of our early races were way down the ballot, we did find ourselves in the middle of one of the strangest governor’s races in Illinois history.

  • • •

  In 1982, former U.S. senator Adlai Stevenson III, heir to one of the great names in Illinois political history, decided to challenge Governor James R. Thompson in what was to be a heavyweight match. Thompson, the former corruption-busting prosecutor, was widely considered a rising star in national Republican politics. Yet with Reagan in the White House and the economy still struggling, 1982 would be a tough year for the GOP, and the supremely confident Thompson underestimated Stevenson, who proved far more tenacious than his staid image suggested. What resulted was the closest governor’s race in Illinois history. Thompson was declared the winner by just 5,074 votes out of more than 3.6 million ballots cast. Yet the Illinois Supreme Court refused Stevenson a recount. In a case of what goes around, comes around, the deciding vote was cast by a Democratic justice whom Senator Stevenson had refused to endorse for the federal bench.

  As 1986 approached, Stevenson, now out of office, didn’t appear to have the stomach for a rematch. The consensus Democratic candidate was the state attorney general, Neil Hartigan, son of an alderman and protégé of the late mayor Daley. In 1972, the handsome redheaded Hartigan had been elected
lieutenant governor at the tender age of thirty-four, which marked him as a man to watch in Illinois politics. Yet fidelity to the party organization meant waiting his turn. In 1986, Hartigan’s number came up.

  Forrest and I were briefly contemplating a new partnership at the time, with David Doak, who had worked for Squier on the Simon race; Bob Shrum, a highly regarded speechwriter for Ted Kennedy and a legion of Democrats; and the pollster Pat Caddell. Part of the ante was to deliver a top Illinois race. I had misgivings about Hartigan. He was a thoroughly good and decent person, but he never struck me as particularly bold or incisive. Even so, he was going to be the nominee, and we signed on to the race. It wasn’t long before I began to regret it. The final straw was a strategy meeting at which one of his advisers asked him where he stood on abortion.

  “Well, I’m against abortion,” replied Hartigan, a devout Catholic.

  The aide persisted. “Yes, but is that in all cases? What about cases of rape and incest?”

  “I don’t know,” Hartigan replied, turning to his brother, David, who was a lobbyist for the Chicago Archdiocese. “Dave, where is the pope on this?” We all burst out laughing, thinking Hartigan had meant this as a joke, but he wasn’t laughing. “I’m not kidding, you guys,” he shouted, his face reddening. “There may be some value in the answer.” That Hartigan wanted guidance on where the pope stood on abortion was shocking, but no more so than that three years into his tenure as attorney general, he seemed to have given no thought to this timely and sensitive legal issue.

  Convinced that Hartigan was fatally flawed, I withdrew from the campaign that day. This would be a tug-and-pull I would wrestle with for years to come, between the demands of running a business and my ideas about what politics should be. Signing on with Hartigan wouldn’t be the last such compromise I would make, particularly early in my career, when I was struggling to establish our business. Still, it was unfair to him for me to have signed on halfheartedly and bad form to leave. Looking back, what was even more dubious was what I did next.