Believer Quotes

“Congress is going to meet with you or without you, I tell them. Don’t turn away in disgust and leave those decisions to someone else. You don’t like politics today? Grab the wheel of history and steer us to a better place. Run for office. Be a strategist or policy aide. Work for a government agency or a nonprofit. Become a thoughtful, probing journalist. Get in the arena. Help shape the world in which you’re going to live. At a minimum, be the engaged citizen a healthy democracy demands.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“As the old saying goes, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“We must build bridges to the future, not the past.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“A year earlier, I had described campaigns to reporters as “like an MRI for the soul—whoever you are, eventually people find out.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“I don’t know if history has a sense of justice. But it certainly has a sense of humor.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Throughout my years with Obama, I publicly deflected questions about whether the vehemence of his opposition was rooted in race. “I’m sure some people voted for the president because he is black and some people voted against him because he is black,” I would say, with the authority of one who had spent a lifetime working with minority candidates to knock down racial barriers that blocked higher offices. “The election of the first black president was a dramatic step forward for America, not a magic healing elixir.” I simply didn’t want to fuel the discussion or appear to be setting the president up as a victim. Still, the truth is undeniable. No other president has seen his citizenship openly and persistently questioned. Never before has a president been interrupted in the middle of a national address by a congressman screaming, “You lie!” Some folks simply refuse to accept the legitimacy of the first black president and are seriously discomforted by the growing diversity of our country. And some craven politicians and right-wing provocateurs have been more than”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“campaign in poetry and govern in prose”—and”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“You won the Nobel Peace Prize,” he said. “Are you kidding me?” “I promise you, sir, that I wouldn’t wake you up to play a joke,” Gibbs replied. “You’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize.” “Gee,” Obama said, absorbing the unlikely news. “All I want to do is pass health care.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“So, on the day after we lost Ted Kennedy’s seat, when everyone in town was reading last rites over our health care bill, Obama began plotting the miracle of its resurrection.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“On the first day I walked into Simon’s bustling headquarters, just across from City Hall, I encountered an intense young fund-raiser sitting in an open cubicle, working his quarry over the phone. Curious, I stopped to watch the spectacle. “Five hundred bucks? Five hundred bucks! You know what you’re telling me? You don’t give a shit about Israel,” the intense, wiry young man shouted at God knows which mover and shaker on the other end of the line. “I’d be embarrassed for you to take your five hundred bucks.” The kid hung up and stared at the phone, which rang an instant later. “Yeah, that’s better,” he said, in a markedly calmer tone. “Thanks.” Even at twenty-four, Rahm Emanuel had a gift for getting his point across, a quality I would see on display many times as we teamed up in the decades to come.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“And because they’re not, when disaster strikes, it tears the curtain away from these festering problems . . . and black and white, all of us should be concerned to make sure that’s not the kind of America that’s reflected on our television screens.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Gibbs was assigned to roust the president. I had left my room so hastily that my hair was standing straight up in the air. When Obama arrived, perfectly groomed, and saw me, he also saw his perfect, unwitting foil. “Axe, I see you decided to dress up as Kim Jong-Il for the occasion,” he said, a reference to the North Korean leader with the famously bizarre hairstyle.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“I understand that, for you, hunting has been a tradition passed on from generation to generation,” Obama said. “Your father probably took you out at dawn to hunt, like his dad did with him. And now, you’re doing the same with your own kids. But where I come from, mothers sit by the window, anxiously waiting for their kids to come home from school, hoping they don’t get shot in some gang crossfire. There has to be a way we can find to both preserve your traditions and save our children.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“I deeply admire the president’s determination to defy the small, poll-driven politics of our day to tackle big things. However, the gap between the singular focus of the campaign and his varied and ambitious agenda afterward undoubtedly sapped some of his political strength, leaving Americans wondering if he was truly focused on their concerns. You can’t take politics entirely out of the process. I don’t speak with the president as much anymore. With the campaigns over, our once-frequent conversations have slowed to a trickle. I miss them. And when I hear the thundering hooves of the Washington pundits and pols on a stampede to run him down, I feel for him. Hell, I bleed for him. The brutal midterm election of 2014 was another painful rebuke. Yet I know this: There are people who are alive today because of the health coverage he made possible. There are soldiers home with their families instead of halfway across the world. There are hundreds of thousands of autoworkers on the assembly line who would have been idled but for him, and the overall economy is in better shape than it has been in years. There are folks who are getting improved deals from their banks and mortgage lenders thanks to new rules in place and a new cop on the beat. There are gay and lesbian Americans who are, for the first time, free to defend their country without having to lie about who they are. There are women who have greater legal recourse when they’re paid less than the man doing the exact same job alongside them. There are families who can afford to send their kids to college because there is more aid available. Oh, and yes . . . just as he predicted in my conference room back in those wonderful, heady days when we first considered an audacious run for the presidency, millions of kids in our country today can dream bigger dreams because Barack Obama has blazed the trail for them.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“This is the way it is with all people, I’ve learned. A person’s strengths almost always have a flip side. Obama’s strengths are prodigious, but he’s not perfect or exempt from blame for some of the disappointments I hear expressed about him ever more frequently these days. The day after the Affordable Care Act passed, a slightly hungover but very happy president walked into my office to reflect on the momentous events of the night before. “Not used to martinis on work nights,” he said with a smile, as he flopped down on the couch across from my desk, still bearing the effects of the late-night celebration he hosted for the staff after the law was passed. “I honestly was more excited last night than I was the night I was elected. Elections are like winning the semifinals. They just give you the opportunity to make a difference. What we did last night? That’s what really matters.” That attitude and approach is what I admire most about Obama, the thing that makes him stand apart. For him, politics and elections are only vehicles, not destinations. They give you the chance to serve. To Obama’s way of thinking, far worse than losing an election is squandering the opportunity to make the biggest possible difference once you get the chance to govern. That’s what allowed him to say “damn the torpedoes” and dive fearlessly into health care reform, despite the obvious political risks. It is why he was able to make many other tough calls when the prevailing political wisdom would have had him punt and wait for another chance with the ball. Yet there is the flip side to that courage and commitment. Obama has limited patience or understanding for officeholders whose concerns are more parochial—which would include most of Congress and many world leaders. “What are they so afraid of?” he asked after addressing the Senate Democrats on health reform, though the answer seemed readily apparent: losing their jobs in the next election! He has aggravated more than one experienced politician by telling them why acting boldly not only was their duty but also served their political needs. Whether it’s John Boehner or Bibi Netanyahu, few practiced politicians appreciate being lectured on where their political self-interest lies. That hint of moral superiority and disdain for politicians who put elections first has hurt Obama as negotiator, and it’s why Biden, a politician’s politician, has often had better luck.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Yet his legislative victories were possible only because of the strong Democratic majorities that Obama had helped sweep into Congress. The Republicans stuck to their game plan and refused Obama cooperation from the start, compelling him to pass every major bill on party-line votes, thus denying him the claim to bipartisanship that both the president and the country desired.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“In his first two years in the White House, Obama accomplished more than any president since LBJ. Not only did he staunch the bleeding of an economy on the brink of disaster and pass health care reform, but he also saved the American auto industry, passed landmark Wall Street reform, raised fuel efficiency standards in cars and trucks, struck down the ban on gays in the military, expanded college aid and reformed student loans, paved the way for new clean energy sources, and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Law to combat pay discrimination against women. He also began to make good on ending America’s longest-running wars, negotiated a new arms control treaty, and rallied the world behind withering sanctions that would bring Iran to”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Pfleger, the fiery, white Catholic priest of St. Sabina”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Elections are like winning the semifinals. They just give you the opportunity to make a difference. What we did last night? That’s what really matters.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“In his first two years in the White House, Obama accomplished more than any president since LBJ. Not only did he staunch the bleeding of an economy on the brink of disaster and pass health care reform, but he also saved the American auto industry, passed landmark Wall Street reform, raised fuel efficiency standards in cars and trucks, struck down the ban on gays in the military, expanded college aid and reformed student loans, paved the way for new clean energy sources, and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Law to”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“he said. “I remember very well. Because of our student loans, Michelle and I could never catch up. So, some months, we paid our bills with credit cards. I went to refinance our condo and I was kind of surprised when they said, ‘You can get cash, too.’ So all of a sudden, my condo is worth fifty thousand dollars more and I can take forty thousand dollars in cash as a loan? I did it, but it seemed too good to be true. It was a racket.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“filler. Barack viewed speeches as carefully constructed arguments.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“His book was a bestseller, and by the end of the year, he had signed a lucrative deal to write three more.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“In November 2004, the last person on the planet who expected Barack Obama to run for president in 2008 was Barack Obama.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“in January 2003, Barack Obama was just a small speedboat trying to launch before some battleship came along and capsized his ambitions.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“career. Why didn’t he wait and run for mayor after Daley was done? Barack would be the perfect candidate to bridge the city’s divides.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“I’m looking at the U.S. Senate in 2004,” he said. “I promised Michelle that if I did it, this would be up or out for me. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to have to go out and make a living.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“When incumbents step down, voters rarely opt for a replica of what they have, even when that outgoing leader is popular. They almost always choose change over the status quo. They want successors whose strengths address the perceived weaknesses in the departing leader.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“Local government is where the rubber hits the road. While state legislators and members of Congress are more remote, local officials are present and visible. They are the first responders of politics.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

“It is a fact of modern political life that when such disasters strike, even those Americans who say they believe in smaller government, or no government at all, quickly break glass and call the government, demanding relief.”
― David Axelrod, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics