“This guy is responsible for all that we’ve done here; it’s his sheer will,” Axelrod, 55, said of the chief of staff. “That character of the brand is essential; David has been the key,” was the return compliment from Emanuel, 50.
It hasn’t been quite that benign. Only a few hours before the unsolicited call one of the few people close to both men worried about a “meltdown” at the top level of the White House.
Earlier in the week, the president summoned these top staff members, according to one second-hand source, to a combination pep talk and woodshed lecture: We’re sticking together and we have each other’s back…
Yet there is a larger self-created problem for which Emanuel and Axelrod are only partly to blame. Go back to the remarkable Obama campaign of 2007-2008. More than any of its rivals, it had a strategic sense of what it was, where it wanted to go…
That is missing in the Obama presidency. Too often it seems situational rather than strategic, reactive more than proactive. Thus setbacks, from minor ones, such as the handling of the Christmas Day bomber, to major ones, like the loss of the Senate seat in Massachusetts, throw team Obama off stride, and leave voters confused.
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