Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

by David Axelrod

  In mid-August, Obama took off for a seventeen-day official trip to Africa, with Gibbs and Mark Lippert, Obama’s national security adviser, the only staff allowed on what was an official congressional trip. With such a small entourage, the logistics were rocky. The value of the trip, however, was immeasurable. Wherever he went, Obama stirred a huge response, yielding scenes more appropriate to a visiting head of state than a freshman U.S. senator. It was a stature-enhancing tour, and as I watched, I was sure it would further stir speculation about 2008.

  “You know, having witnessed this trip, I am beginning to believe this guy is ready to be president,” Gibbs told me when they returned. “The reaction he got over there . . . the way he inspired people . . . it was pretty remarkable.”

  Slowly, subtly, what a year earlier had seemed impossible, had evolved into something more than a pipe dream.

  Privately, Barack continued to express healthy skepticism. Self-confident though he was, he was not blind to the audacity of such a candidacy or, more important, the organizational challenges of pulling it off. No less daunting would be the challenge of persuading Michelle that his running for the presidency would be the right path for their young family. Yet after the trip to Africa, Barack was privately a little more forward-leaning. The reception he had received overseas, coupled with the extraordinary media coverage of the trip back home, was an encouraging sign. “With so many folks talking to me about running, I feel like I have an obligation to at least think about this in a serious, informed way,” he said to me. “Let’s collect some information and sit down after the midterms and see where we are at.”

  For an Obama candidacy, we reasoned that Iowa stood as the critical threshold. It was the same test Paul Simon had faced twenty years earlier. If Barack, as a progressive senator from a neighboring state, could not make a strong showing in a contest traditionally dominated by liberal activists, he would have no chance to pull off a long-shot candidacy on less friendly political terrain. On the other hand, a victory in these first-in-the-nation caucuses would make all things possible. So as he continued to demur publicly, Barack authorized us to engage in some discreet polling to test the plausibility of an Iowa campaign.

  Even before the polling, Obama would have a chance to test his Iowa chops at Senator Tom Harkin’s annual Steak Fry, a highly prized event that attracted thousands of hard-core Democratic activists from across Iowa—the type of people who would be important players in the 2008 presidential caucuses. Much like the Florida Democratic convention organizers, Harkin told Obama he needed him to help fend off all the presidential wannabes, most of whom were hungry for the keynote slot. Obama was the perfect compromise: an A-list attraction who had disavowed a 2008 candidacy. But if he accepted, his disavowal of interest might begin to strain the straight-face test. “If we do this, the whole presidential thing is going to kick up like ten notches,” I told Gibbs. “Oh, don’t I know,” he replied. “Be kind of fun to screw with everybody, though.”

  If Obama was looking for encouragement, he found plenty in Indianola, the site of the Steak Fry. A much larger than usual crowd of about thirty-five hundred activists turned out for Harkin’s event and cheered wildly as Barack made a robust case for a renewed Democratic vision that he had refined over his year of political travels. “I’ll tell you what,” Obama said in his typically understated manner, after returning from his Iowa expedition. “If I did run, I’d have a few supporters there.”

  When Paul Harstad’s hush-hush poll came back at the beginning of October, it confirmed Barack’s upbeat assessment. Edwards, who had finished a strong second to Kerry in Iowa in 2004, was well in the lead with 33 percent. Hillary followed with 18—but right behind her, at 15, came Obama, ahead of 2004 caucus winner Kerry and seven other potential candidates all mired in single digits. Without a candidacy or campaign apparatus, and despite being brand new to the national scene, Barack was already in the top tier, with room to grow.

  With the encouraging Iowa results in hand, we decided to repeat the polling exercise a few weeks later in New Hampshire. Far from our Illinois turf, we didn’t have high expectations, but when the results came back, they showed Obama trailing Hillary by just seven points, with Edwards in third and the rest of the field well behind—this, despite the fact that Obama had spent no time in the Granite State and was virtually unknown to nearly one out of three voters. Holy shit, I thought. This goddamned thing could happen.

  • • •

  After his election to the Senate, Obama had signed a contract to write a second book. It was to be a volume of his reflections on politics and policy. Only there wasn’t a great deal of time for reflection. Pressed by his day job, political travel, and the desire to spend time with his family, he had not exactly hunkered down on the project. So throughout the early winter and spring, chapters were flying between Obama and his team. He would hole up in his tiny apartment near the Capitol, writing deep into the night. His policy advisers checked and supplied facts. Favreau contributed edits for language. The political team read for potential land mines—though Obama ignored some of our red flags, having eagerly planted them in the manuscript. That the race to the finish line was such a frantic process made the final product all the more remarkable. The book reflected serious, hard thinking about where we were as a country and where we needed to go.

  What animated The Audacity of Hope were the stories of people, written with the narrative skill of a gifted novelist. It occurred to me, in reading the manuscript, that Obama approached every encounter as a participant and an observer. He processed the world around him with a writer’s eye, sizing up the characters and the plot, filing them away even as he fully engaged in the scene. He has appreciation for irony and a firm grasp on the fact that some things remain beyond our control. It’s a quality that contributes to his outward calm, even amid utter chaos.

  When Obama signed his lucrative book deal, however, it wasn’t with 2008 in mind. But by the time The Audacity of Hope appeared, just weeks before the 2006 midterm elections, its publication was viewed by the political world not as a pragmatic moneymaker or a means for Obama to organize and present his views, but as another signal of his political intentions. And the reaction was kinetic.

  Though he scrambled to make his deadline, the book was released on October 17 to rave reviews and shot to the top of the charts. Obama was back on the television circuit and touring the nation, where his book signings drew overflow crowds. As folks passed through the line for an autographed copy and a quick hello, many of them urged Barack to take the plunge into the presidential race.

  One Saturday in late October, I met Barack and Gibbs in Philadelphia, where hundreds of people had lined up at a local library for a book signing. Obama was taping Meet the Press the next day, and I was there to join Gibbs and Barack on the ride to Washington to run through the questions he’d likely face.

  The interview was scheduled to promote Obama’s book, but there would be an unmistakable subtext. Rigorous as Russert was, Meet the Press had become a required proving ground—or killing field—for potential presidential candidates. With Obama’s rising stature, Russert would put him through his paces, testing this rookie with the fastballs and hard curves that a serious presidential candidate would be expected to handle.

  “One thing you can be one hundred percent sure Tim will do is replay the tape of you on his show from January, when you said you wouldn’t run for president or vice president in 2008,” I said, as we rumbled down I-95 toward DC.

  “Right,” Obama said. “Well, I see no point in playing games. I’m going to tell him that I’ve changed my mind and I’m thinking about it.”

  Gibbs, who was sitting in the jump seat of the Suburban, shot me a quick glance. We knew that such a statement would be big news, a seismic event that would send the Washington political class into a frenzy.

  “Sir, that’s fine by me,” Gibbs said, “but have you mentioned this to Mrs. Obama?” Ro
bert knew that Michelle was far from sold on the wisdom of a presidential campaign and would not be thrilled to learn about her husband’s altered sentiments by watching TV. “Ooh, that’s a good point, Robert,” Barack said, wincing at the thought. “I’d better give her a heads-up.” It probably was a conversation he was less than eager to have. Michelle was barely tolerating the demands of Barack’s schedule as a senator and barnstorming campaigner. She was far from ready to sign off on an even bigger and more demanding venture.

  The next day, Gibbs and I accompanied Obama to the NBC studios in Washington. Before the show, the garrulous Russert greeted us in the green room, a large sheaf of papers under his arm. They were filled, Gibbs and I suspected, with highlighted passages from Obama’s book and likely his public statements dating back to grade school. When the interview began, it was vintage Russert from the first question:

  “Let me start with Iraq, because you write about it in your book and you’ve been talking about it on the campaign a little bit,” he said. “This is what you told New Yorker magazine: ‘There’s an old saying in politics: when your opponent’s in trouble, just get out of the way . . . in political terms, I don’t think that Democrats are obligated to solve Iraq for the administration.’ Is there an obligation in non-political terms?”

  It was a bracing opener, a tough but fair and exceedingly important question, designed to probe whether Obama was a standard-issue Washington politician, crassly thinking about the next election, or something more. We had anticipated it and Barack didn’t flinch or hesitate when it came.

  “Yes, and then, you know, if you follow up the quote in that magazine article, what I said is, despite the politics, we have young men and women who are putting their lives at stake in Iraq,” Barack explained, pitching his plan for a phased withdrawal of troops. “We’re making an enormous investment on the part of the American people, and so we do have an obligation to step up.”

  For twenty-five minutes they went back and forth, Russert challenging Barack with his own quotes, not merely to set traps but to elicit a deeper understanding of how a President Obama would approach issues ranging from Iraq to North Korea to Darfur. When and where would he commit troops? Would he be willing to negotiate with hostile foreign leaders? Just what had he meant when he wrote that President Bush had a “messianic certainty,” or that his own party was “confused”?

  Barack’s answers were thoughtful and confident. He was passing the Russert Test with flying colors. As the interview turned to the homestretch, Russert prepared the ground for the question that had been hovering over the entire interview.

  “You’ve been a United States senator less than two years,” Tim said, leaning in. “You don’t have any executive experience. Are you ready to be president?”

  Obama was certainly ready for that question.

  “Well, I’m not sure anybody is ready to be president before they’re president,” he replied. “You know, ultimately, I trust the judgment of the American people that, in any election, they sort it through . . . You know, we have a long and rigorous process, and, you know, should I decide to run, if I ever did decide to run, I’m confident that I’d be run through the paces pretty good, including on Meet the Press.”

  His answer all but demanded the question we had anticipated.

  “Well, nine months ago, you were on this program and I asked you about running for president. And let’s watch and come back and talk about it.”

  Russert then played the tape from January, when Barack firmly disavowed a candidacy for national office in 2008. Was that still his position?

  “Well, that was how I was thinking at that time,” Barack said. “And, and, you know, I don’t want to be coy about this, given the responses that I’ve been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility. But I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required. My main focus right now is . . . making sure that we retake the Congress. After November 7, I’ll sit down and consider it, and if at some point, I change my mind, I will make a public announcement and everybody will be able to go at me.” Russert raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “But it’s fair to say you’re thinking about running for president in 2008?”

  “It’s fair, yes.”

  The day after the interview, Russert called:

  “You know, I’ve been doing this show for fifteen years, and no one has ever done that before,” he said admiringly. “No one has ever simply fessed up and said, ‘Yeah, I said that about not running, but now things have changed, and I’m thinking about running. I’ve changed my mind.’”

  Tim might have found Obama’s handling of the Question disarming, but not everyone was charmed. While offers of support and encouragement did pour in, there was no shortage of quotes from supporters of Hillary and the other candidates—blind quotes, of course—dismissing Obama’s preparedness and, ultimately, his prospects. Also, not everyone was ready to take the idea of an Obama candidacy seriously. Time ran a cover story that week by its seasoned political writer Joe Klein, headlined: “Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President.” As soon as the magazine hit the streets, Gibbs grabbed a copy from a newsstand in downtown Chicago. As Robert was paying, the vendor glanced over his shoulder at the headline and scoffed. “Fuck that!” the man said with a smirk, as if finding the whole premise ridiculous. When Gibbs shared this story, Barack howled with laughter.

  Obama had spent the year raising millions and logging thousands of miles campaigning for Democrats and collecting valuable chits for whatever was to come. Entering the midterm election year as the party’s most sought-after surrogate, Barack now emerged from it as its most intriguing prospect.

  THIRTEEN

  AN AUDACIOUS DECISION

  THE NIGHT BEFORE the 2006 election, an exhausted and emotionally depleted Rahm called me in despair. He was convinced, despite all objective evidence, that his Herculean efforts to take control of the House had fallen short. He was inconsolable. “We’re not going to make it,” he moaned. “I know it. We’re going to lose.” A day later, he was the toast of Washington, shimmying and clasping hands with incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders in a joyous, if awkward, victory dance.

  I had a lot of happy options for my Election Night. I could have gone to Boston, where I could personally have congratulated my sister, Joan, for her prescience, as Deval Patrick celebrated a landslide victory in his gubernatorial race. Or I could have taken the short hop up the highway to Milwaukee, where my friend and client Herb Kohl would be rewarded for his excellent service with a fourth term in the U.S. Senate. I decided to spend the night in Washington with Rahm. I knew it would mean a lot to him if I showed up—and I also thought that, just in case the numbers were wrong and the night went sour, I should be there for his very pointed “I told you so!”

  I had become accustomed to the campaign cycle and the physical and emotional toll inflicted by the final sprint to Election Day—a blur of urgent calls, quick strategic judgments, last-minute film shoots, and long nights in editing suites. Even when you got a few hours’ sleep, your mind never stopped racing. It is an eight-week rush that comes to an abrupt end, and win or lose, you quickly move into recovery mode. You spend what’s left of the year decompressing, sleeping in, taking deep breaths, acclimating yourself to the rhythms of everyday life and reintroducing yourself to your loved ones.

  Yet there would be no break in 2006, no time at all to recover or unwind. The morning after the election, I got on a plane and returned to Chicago for a meeting that would launch the next election cycle—and phase of my life.

  As much out of necessity as a sense of propriety, Barack had postponed any in-depth discussions about 2008 until after the 2006 election. Given his relentless campaign and book promotion schedule, it was unrealistic to carve out the requisite hours for such a monumental subject. Nor could his political operatives bring full f
ocus to the next campaign while we were in the final throes of our current races. With time short for a decision, though, we had agreed to convene the day after the election. So, on the afternoon of November 8, a weary team assembled with Barack and Michelle in the windowless conference room of my office to begin the 2008 conversation in earnest.

  I could not recall a single campaign meeting Michelle had attended during his race for the Senate, but the Obamas knew the magnitude of the commitment that would now be under discussion, a commitment that would profoundly impact their family and demand far more of Michelle than the past campaigns. If she were going to be a partner in the campaign, as voters now required of their potential First Ladies, she had to be a full partner in the decision to run. Without her blessing, it would be a nonstarter. Without her total commitment, a blessing wouldn’t be enough. And she naturally wanted to hear firsthand what a campaign would entail.

  The Obamas had brought two close friends whose counsel they sought in evaluating the decision from a little more emotional distance. Marty Nesbitt was Barack’s neighbor, peer, and basketball-playing buddy. He was a successful entrepreneur who had built a nationwide business from off-site airport parking lots. Though he had helped raise money for Barack’s previous campaigns, Marty was not a big political player in Chicago. That wasn’t his passion. Yet he was passionate about their friendship, and he was there to watch his best friend’s back.

  Valerie Jarrett was someone I knew better. A lawyer and real estate developer, she had been involved in city government in a variety of positions since the days of Harold Washington. Valerie hailed from one of the city’s most prominent African American families. I had always found her to be both smart and pleasant, but she also had earned a reputation around City Hall as a tenacious, bureaucratic infighter. In 1991, as Daley’s deputy chief of staff, Valerie hired Michelle Robinson, a bright young lawyer from one of the city’s leading firms. Valerie quickly became a mentor and friend to Michelle and her fiancé, Barack Obama, for whom she opened doors to useful political and social circles.