On Charlie Rose, Ax Takes Walk Down Memory Lane

On the Charlie Rose Show last night, senior adviser to President Obama David Axelrod took a walk down memory lane, recalling key behind-the-scenes moments of the lanky Illinoisan’s rise to power.

In the 1980s, Ax recalled, after Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and came to Chicago to run a voter registration drive, a friend of Axelrod’s, Betty Lou Saltzman, called and said “I just met the most remarkable young man, and I really want you to meet him, because — and I know this is going to sound odd — …I think he could become the first black president of the United States.” 

“Well, that’s a pretty grandiose thought," Axelrod recalled saying.

After he met him, Ax said, "you couldn’t help but be struck by how bright he was, how, you know, open and genuine he was, and how committed he was to doing something positive with his life.  It was clear that he wasn’t someone who was out to make a killing or take his gold-plated law degree and cash in on it.  He wanted to make a difference in the community and in the country. And we became friends and we’ve been friends ever since."

Michelle: What Do You Think You Can Achieve That Others Can’t?

In the weeks before he made the decision to run for president, Obama and his advisers had a small meeting.

“What do you think you can achieve that others could not?” Michelle Obama asked him, per Ax.

“Well, there are two things I know for sure," said then-Sen. Obama. "One is when I take that oath of office, instantly there are millions of kids all over this country who are going to look at themselves and their prospects differently than they did before. And I think the world will look at us differently, because it will be an affirmation of our higher ideals, that we’ll have lived our ideals.” 

Challenges As a Candidate

Early on in the campaign, Ax recalled Obama saying: "I think the American people are ready for Barack Obama.  I just hope I can be Barack Obama, or at least the Barack Obama that they want and expect."

"In the early part of the campaign…he felt very challenged," Axelrod recalled. "Most candidates get to take their campaign on the road and kind of test-drive it, like the equivalent of taking a play to Topeka and New Haven before it gets to Broadway.  This  play opened right up on Broadway, with the critics in the front row and the
klieg lights on, and they stayed there from the first day.  And all his mistakes and all his learning happened under that kind of pressure.  And he wasn’t a great candidate when this race began.  He was a great man, I believe so deeply in him…But as a candidate, he really had to grow, and he challenged himself." 

After a health care forum in Nevada early in the campaign, then-Sen. Obama noted, "She was far better than I was today.  She was the one who looked like the president today, but I know what I have to do and I’m going to challenge  myself, and he said, and I’m going to figure out how to be a great candidate for president." 

"And over the course of a few months, that’s exactly what he did," Axelrod said. And "not only did he grow, but he kind of dragged all of us along with him.  Our worst days were his best days.  When we had a setback, when we lost a primary, or when there was a bad story, or — he was the guy who gathered us all together
and pointed us in the right direction.  And he was always coolest and most focused when the pressure was the greatest.  And of course, that’s what you want in a president."

Cocky After Iowa

One example — after the Iowa Caucuses.

"We went sailing into New Hampshire after winning the Iowa caucuses, and we were frankly a little cocky as a campaign… We basically took five days of victory laps.  And meanwhile, Senator Clinton rolled up her sleeves and was fighting for every vote, and looked like it.  And you remember, there was the incident where she became emotional at an event in New Hampshire, and I remember we were riding on a bus and someone said, oh, she had this breakdown.  We went online and looked at it.  And I think Senator Obama and I had the same reaction to it, which was, ‘You know what? That was a very compelling human moment…. We were cocky, and on the other hand it didn’t feel right to us going into that election. And sure enough, the next day, even though the polls said we were 10 points ahead, when we started cracking open the precincts, it was pretty clear pretty quickly that we weren’t going to win."

Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe went to see Obama, who was in a suite with his wife, Michelle.

"We asked them to come out into the hallway.  We said, you know, boss, we’re going to come up a couple of percentage points short here.  And he just leaned against the wall and he kind of smiled wanly, and he said, ‘This is going to go on for a while, isn’t it?’

The next day, at a Boston fundraiser, Obama said, “I know this sounds like spin, but I think it was meant to be that we didn’t win this primary.  It would have been far too easy. Change is never easy.  Change is something you have to fight for, and this would have come too easily. We are going to have to work for every vote from this point on, and let me tell you why it’s worth the struggle, why it’s worth the fight."

- jpt