David Axelrod

David M. Axelrod (born February 22, 1955) is an American political operative and political analyst, best known as the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. After Obama's election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to the President. Axelrod left the White House position in early 2011 and became the Senior Strategist for Obama's successful re-election campaign in 2012. He currently serves as the director of the non-partisan Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and is a Senior Political Commentator for CNN. He is a former political writer for the Chicago Tribune, and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Believer, My Forty Years in Politics, which was published in 2015. 2Early life Axelrod was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, and grew up in its Stuyvesant Town area. He was raised in a liberal Jewish family. His mother, Myril Bennett (née Davidson), was a journalist at PM, a liberal-leaning 1940s newspaper, and later an advertising executive at Young & Rubicam. His father, Joseph Axelrod, was a psychologist and avid baseball fan, who migrated from Eastern Europe to the United States at the age of eleven. He attended Public School 40 in Manhattan. Axelrod's parents separated when he was eight years ol