Comparing Obama '08 to Bush '00

Previously, I compared the histories of Karl Rove and David Axelrod. Another way to compare the two would be to compare the campaigns each has shaped. In 2000 and 2004, Karl Rove (the second link in his name creeps me out a little) was the principal advisor to George W. Bush in his campaigns for President. In 2008, David Axelrod is the principal advisor to Barack Obama.


I want to see David Axelrod's tax returns next year if this is the case in the Obama campaign. From a Rolling Stone article from April 2007:

The party's campaign strategists operate under contracts that would make Halliburton blush. While their GOP counterparts work for a flat fee on presidential campaigns, Democratic media consultants profit on commission, pocketing as much as ten percent of every dollar spent on TV ads. It's a business model that creates "an inherent conflict of interest," concedes Anita Dunn, who served as a strategist for Bill Bradley in 2000. The more the candidate spends on TV advertising, the more the consultant cashes in. And that compensation is hidden from public scrutiny: Federal campaign reports reveal only what a campaign spends on ads, not how much the consultants skim off the top.

"Consulting," says former Gore campaign chair Tony Coelho, "is a business that can turn into a racket." Over the past two presidential elections, Rolling Stone estimates, that racket has cost the Democrats at least $10 million more in consultant fees than it did the Republicans. Even top GOP advisers, who usually counsel that greed is good, are amazed by the exorbitant fees. "If you want to elect your candidate, you ought to be able to work for a reasonable rate -- not try to haul off a sack full of profits," says Mark McKinnon, the lead media strategist for George Bush in both 2000 and 2004.

Can you imagine how much money even one percent of the total amount that Obama's campaign has spent on television advertising? Earlier tonight, Barack Obama bought half an hour in prime time from 7 to 7:30 pm CDT, on three of the four national television networks, FOX, NBC, and CBS. This forced the delay of the conclusion of Game 5 of the World Series. If you read the articles linked to in this post about David Axelrod, you will remember that he is obsessive about baseball. I wonder whose idea it was to buy the half hour time slot before the possible series clenching games of the World Series. Also, if you go to the bottom of that story on SkyNews, it says

It is estimated that by the time this election is over Obama will have spent £144m ($230m) on TV advertising.

Ten percent of that would make a very tidy sum.

The bottom line is that, by writing this, I now think that David Axelrod is the most interesting figure in this political campaign. One thing about Rove in 2000 was that he was well known. Rove had been involved with the Republican Party, in DC then in Texas, back to Watergate. I do not see a broad spectrum of information available about Axelrod like I do when I search for "Rove 2000".

Since I am new to all this, I do not know how to embed youtube videos, so I will just give you the links.

John Edwards in 2004, when Axelrod worked for him.


Barack Obama in 2007, when Axelrod worked for him.


Apparently the politics of hope requires a black candidate and slower, clearer diction.


I just deleted a lot of this post because it was much too long. I will try to revisit the similarities between the Bush '00 and Obama '08 after I have had more time to ponder and research this topic. If I ever do write it, it will be very long.

Kingmakers: David Axelrod and Karl Rove

David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief strategist and media advisor. Karl Rove is an evil bastard, and also was George W. Bush's senior advisor. What is the difference between David Axelrod and Karl Rove? Karl Rove is a lifelong GOP activist/advisor and David Axelrod is a long-time Democrat advisor (his only other job was as reporter for the Chicago Tribune for 8 years). They both groomed young, charismatic candidates to run for President.

Here is Wikipedia's entry about Axelrod's career up until the 2008 Presidential election:

He formed a political consultancy, Axelrod & Associates, in 1985. In 1987, he worked on the successful reelection campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. This established his first experience in working with black politicians and he later became a key player in similar mayoral campaigns of blacks, including Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael R. White in Cleveland, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., Lee P. Brown in Houston, and John F. Street in Philadelphia.[5] Axelrod is a longtime strategist for Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and styles himself a "specialist in urban politics."

In 2004, Axelrod worked for the presidential campaign of John Edwards. During the campaign, he lost responsibility for making ads, but continued as the campaign's spokesman. Regarding Edwards' failed 2004 presidential campaign, Axelrod has commented, "I have a whole lot of respect for John, but at some point the candidate has to close the deal and—I can’t tell you why—that never happened with John."

In 2006, Axelrod consulted for several campaigns, including for the successful campaigns of Eliot Spitzer in New York's gubernatorial election and for Deval Patrick in Massachusetts's gubernatorial election. Axelrod also served in 2006 as the chief political adviser for Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel for the U.S. House of Representatives elections, in which the Democrats gained 31 seats.

Karl Rove's political consultancy experience is certainly longer, too long for me to insert here, but I think you will accept that I am comparing apples to apples here.

Axelrod specializes in the nether-region between lobbying and advertising. Wikipedia's entry on him refers to this field as "astroturfing", or the manufacturing of a grass-roots movement. I'm not going to pretend I know much about this, here is a link for some background information, but it still strikes one as kind of icky.

So, there it is, my first post with some sources. I grant that two are Wikipedia, and the other is linked to from Wikipedia, but I still put forth some effort. Also, I want to give a shout out to my girlfriend who has labelled my blog "gayy" (emphasis added), at least half-jokingly, too!