Political strategist David Axelrod says he didn't "groove" with former client John Edwards in an interview with correspondent Jim Axelrod for CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH CHARLES OSGOOD, to be broadcast today, Feb. 8 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.
In 2004, Axelrod worked with Edwards during his unsuccessful run for President.
"I very quickly agreed to go to work for him, without really getting to know him, getting to know his wife, Elizabeth. And we just didn't groove," David Axelrod says of Edwards.
"I felt that John was authentically sympathetic to the average working person," Axelrod adds. "I don't think that he was terribly interested in the sort of drilling down of policy and really coming up with solutions."
Edwards stood in contrast to another Axelrod client at the time, Barack Obama, then running for the U.S. Senate.
"It was striking to me the difference between the two of them, because Barack always wanted to drill three and four levels deep on these things," David Axelrod explains. "And he was really moved by the substance of this, and what is the right thing to do. And I felt like John wanted to do what he needed to do to get to the next rung."
Axelrod became one of Obama's most trusted advisors and followed him to the White House in 2009. In 2011, Axelrod left the White House to return to Chicago. He talks with Jim Axelrod about his new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, his future in political strategy, about reconnecting with his family, and where he thinks President Obama has a weakness.
"I think one of the weaknesses has been that he doesn't apply the same campaign skills to governing, the same driving of a message relentlessly. He tends to take on lots of things at once, and it creates diffusion," David Axelrod says. "And it's hard for people to know how it all adds up."
CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the
CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.
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