David Axelrod is America’s smartest political strategist on the left. He has an impressive track record in backing longshots who win. Axelrod may be about to launch his most audacious campaign yet: installing Michelle Obama as the Democratic Party candidate for President in 2024.

 

Axelrod was born in 1955 (New York) into what he has described as a ‘very turbulent’ family. He moved to Chicago to attend college and while studying worked part-time as a political reporter and on graduation was scooped up by the Chicago Tribune where he worked for almost a decade. In 1981 he was the youngest ever political bureau chief of his paper … but Axelrod wanted closer to the arena.

Paul Simon was a member of the US House of Representatives (for a district in Illinois) and in 1984 announced a primary challenge against an incumbent senator. Axelrod was hired by Simon to help with PR but was soon promoted to campaign manager and Simon pulled off an upset. Axelrod promptly put a ‘political consultant’ shingle up and it became the go-to place for ambitious Democrats in Illinois and beyond.

In 1992 it was suggested Axelrod should meet a young, well-presented guy named Barack Obama who had just returned to Chicago after graduating from Harvard Law School. It helped that Obama was engaged to Michelle Robinson – the daughter of a reasonably significant figure in Chicago’s Democratic Party machine. Axelrod’s specialty by now was ‘packaging black candidates for white voters’ and so Axelrod and Obama hit it off. 12 years later, age 43, Obama was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention and soon after elected a US senator. Two years after that, Obama announced he was running for president in 2008. Axelrod was Obama’s ‘campaign strategist’.

Throughout 2007, pundits assured us Hillary Clinton had a lock on the Democratic nomination. Obama spent that year in distant second place but in early 2008 the race was deadlocked after Obama shocked with a big win in Iowa. A five-month primary slugfest ensued up and down the nation but Obama won the primary and cruised into the presidency. Hillary Clinton and John McCain campaigned on ‘experience.’ Axelrod preferred ‘hope’ and ‘change’ … which in the dying days of the Bush Administration had appeal.

Axelrod was employed as President Obama’s ‘senior advisor’ until he resigned to run Obama’s successful re-election. During that 2012 presidential race, the leader in the Republican primary polls changed half a dozen times but Axelrod made the wise call early on, ‘Romney’s got the most money and organisation so he’ll win.’ While Romney was still slugging away in the primary, Team Obama launched attack ads on Romney that he never recovered from: Romney was an ultra-rich, heartless, corporate downsizer, and offshorer.

During the 2016 and the 2020 elections, Axelrod retained a public profile but was not professionally involved with either of Hillary or Biden’s presidential campaigns. Throughout all the tumult of this period, Axelrod has remained intimate with the Obama’s.

It was Axelrod in 2008 who suggested candidate Obama chose Biden as his running mate because Obama needed an older, white guy who was part of the DC establishment. It was a blunt political calculation. The running mates won but they didn’t start out close and over time the relationship drifted. Obama is an ideologue who thinks about changing the world. Biden is the caricature of a politician – he makes noise but achieves little beyond self-promotion. Obama saw Biden’s performance up close and was unimpressed.

Obama warned his VP early on that he was to have nothing to do with Hunter Biden or James Biden’s geopolitical business dealings. Biden told Obama what he wanted to hear, but as the eight years unfolded the Bidens increasingly stretched that understanding. The left-wing media might dismiss the corruption allegations against the Bidens but Obama appears to maintain a certain sense of disdain.

In 2016, Obama snubbed his VP and anointed Hillary his successor. Biden (the endless fibber) then claimed he’d decided not to run because he was too upset about this late son Beau. The truth may be that Biden knew Obama was the party tsar and without his endorsement, there was no hope. But Hillary lost in 2016 and in the aftermath, Team Biden said ‘told ya so’ to Team Obama.

In 2019 Biden asked Obama to endorse him for the 2020 race. Biden surely assumed that since Obama had chosen him as his VP, Obama would be obligated to agree especially since Obama’s 2016 endorsement was apparently a coin-flip between Hillary and Biden. Obama, however, declined effectively saying, ‘I know you Joe. I know you are not up to the job.’ When that snub hit the press Biden fibbed again and said he had asked Obama ‘not to endorse him’.

Thanks to Covid hysteria, big-tech censorship, mail-out ballots etc, Biden proved Obama wrong a second time and was sworn in as President. Obama’s assessment of Biden’s capacity for the actual role however can only be lower today than it was in 2019.

The ill-will between Biden and Obama has been ratcheting lately.

On November 5, 2023 the New York Times published polling data from key states – it showed Trump clobbering Biden. The next day Axelrod posted on X:

It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict and Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm. He’s defied conventional wisdom before but this polling will send tremors of doubt thru the party – not ‘bed-wetting’, but legitimate concern. The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore. Only Joe Biden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?

Axelrod then spent a day reiterating his Biden swipe in media interviews. It soon leaked Biden thought Axelrod was a ‘prick’. A fortnight later Axelrod spoke with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Her piece was entitled, The Axe is Sharp and in it, Axelrod said:

‘I don’t care about them thinking I’m a prick – that’s fine. I hope they don’t think the polls are wrong because they’re not. I think he has a 50-50 shot here, but no better than that, maybe a little worse. He thinks he can cheat nature here and it’s really risky. They’ve got a real problem if they’re counting on Trump to win it for them. I remember Hillary doing that, too.’

On December 13, 2023, Axelrod was on a podcast with other Obama alumni. That day worse polling was published and Axelrod described it as ‘very, very dark news for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign’.

On December 16, 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Still, a round of dismal polls is increasing jitters among Democrats, including some in the West Wing, who are worried that voters’ negative views on the president are going unchallenged. Those Democrats are growing impatient for a full-fledged campaign to start.

Those with concerns include former President Barack Obama, who ‘knows this is going to be a close race’ and ‘feels that Democrats very well could lose’ the 2024 election, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Obama worries that ‘the alternative is pretty dangerous for democracy,’ the person said.

Obama could have refuted these quite damaging quotes and thereby help Biden’s re-election prospects. Obama has declined to do so leaving the impression he very much wants his anti-Biden thoughts in the public domain.

Two days later on December 18, 2023 the lead story in the Washington Post reported:

The night before President Biden departed Washington to celebrate Thanksgiving on Nantucket, Mass., he gathered his closest aides for a meeting in the White House residence. After pardoning a pair of turkeys, an annual White House tradition, Biden delivered some stern words for the small group assembled: His poll numbers were unacceptably low and he wanted to know what his team and his campaign were doing about it. He complained that his economic message had done little to move the ball, even as the economy was growing and unemployment was falling, according to people familiar with his comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

Biden blaming staff is delusional. What’s more significant however is at least two of Biden’s ‘kitchen cabinet’ are briefing the press that the boss is sounding desperate. Why would presidential staff ever destabilise the boss and especially with only ten months to go? Around three-quarters of Biden’s top 100 staffers had previously been employed by Obama (guess who they like more?).

There is a campaign within the highest echelons of the Democratic Party to destabilise Joe Biden and force his polls down further until he is convinced to withdraw from 2024. Axelrod is playing a central role. The plotters however would not go to the acute bother of knocking out an incumbent if they didn’t have a replacement in the wings.

Betting markets say Gavin Newsom is the next Democratic cab off the rank but he was damaged by his recent debate with Governor Ron DeSantis on Fox News. More significantly Newsom is a white-male and the Democrats have dug themselves an identity quota swamp.

If Biden were to announce prior to the August convention he won’t contest 2024 because of ‘health reasons’, then on paper at least, the presumptive favourite for the nomination is the Vice President … but everyone (including surely Kamala) knows she is even more incapable. If Biden is the nominee then Harris will be his running mate … but if Biden goes, so does Kamala. They don’t appear to be friendly but they are a package deal.

So if Kamala heads for the exit it would still mean a female and an African-American were being demoted from the ticket. That is a sin in a party under the spell of Woke – a sin that could only be expiated by doubling down on woke.

While Trump is on track to win the biggest primary delegate haul in the history of contested races, the Democrats are in a diabolical mess as Team Biden digs in.

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert recently released a film Michelle Obama 2024: Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power. It is a meticulously researched, deep dive in Michelle Obama’s life. A central theme is that while Michelle has successfully cultivated a politically disinterested image … she is in fact acutely political and acutely ambitious. Most have fallen for the spin about Michelle just wanting to be a great mum and wife – Gilbert demolishes it.

Gilbert makes an interesting case that the Obamas are plotting ‘Michelle 2024’ (if he’s right I’d include Axelrod). Michelle would certainly solve the quota quagmire. If they are successful in wearing 81-year-old Joe down and he capitulates then the nomination will be decided at the August convention … which conveniently this year is in Michelle’s hometown of Chicago. If Michelle nominates no one else will bother – it’d be a coronation.

Michelle didn’t run in 2016 because it was immediately after her hubby had been President for eight years … that would have reeked of nepotism. In 2020 the Obamas and Axelrod likely calculated Trump was on track for re-election – before Covid hysteria betting markets gave Trump a 70 per cent chance of winning. They had been planning 2024 since 2016 … but Biden’s 2020 victory and intention to recontest have complicated things.

Team Obama can either continue the destabilisation until Biden relents or they can desist at some point and hope Biden somehow wins. The problem with the latter is the Democrats are petrified of a second Trump presidency because of his commitment to launch endless investigations. Obama once said of Biden, ‘You cannot underestimate his ability to f- things up.’ It’s hard to see them risk so much by betting on a mentally and physically declining Joe Biden.

Eight months till the convention.

The Hon John Ruddick MLC is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council

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