David M. Axelrod is an American political consultant based in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known as a top political advisor to former President Bill Clinton as well as campaign advisor to Barack Obama during Obama's successful run for Presidency. Following the 2008 election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to Obama. Axelrod left the White House position in early 2011 to return to Chicago and was expected to assist in the president's 2012 re-election campaign. Axelrod is the founder of AKP&D Message and Media, was a political writer for the Chicago Tribune, and operated ASK... Public Strategies, now called ASGK Public Strategies. Axelrod grew up in Stuyvesant Town on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in a middle class Jewish-American household. He attended Public School 40. Axelrod's father was a psychologist and avid baseball fan. His mother worked as a journalist at PM, a left-wing 1940s newspaper. Axelrod's parents separated when he was eight years old. Axelrod traces his political involvement back to his childhood. Describing the appeal of politics, he told the Los Angeles Times, "I got into politics because I believe in idealism.
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