Painting Obama

Profile of David Axelrod, a strategist for Obama on NYTMag. Some useful insights into the presidential politics (esp the bit about Hillary towards the end) and a couple of great quotes (What is a good reporter anyways but a writer who is able to distill a story into a few thematic quotes?).

“One of the reasons Bush has succeeded in two elections, is that in his own rough-hewn way he has conveyed a sense of this is who I am, warts and all.”

“So many consultants are fighting the last war, but David is fighting the next one, and that makes him very, very dangerous”

“What David is basically doing — and this is somewhat new for Democrats — isn’t trying to figure out how to sell policies. It’s a matter of personality. How do we sell leadership?”

“I know that there are people who wouldn’t vote for a black candidate, but I don’t know if they would vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. But I think that in a sense Barack is the personification of his own message for this country, that we get past the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us. He is his own vision.”

Karl Rove helped George Bush win two terms as president by “understanding that every election is a reaction to the last president” and then in 2004 by “figuring out how to make Bush’s stubbornness into a political virtue.”