The Player at Bat

The Obama Connection

In 2002 one of the politicians who sought him out was a boyish state senator from the South Side named Barack Obama, who was contemplating a race for the U.S. Senate. They had met in the early 1990s and liked each other. Axelrod had counseled him to skip the Senate race and wait for a chance to run for mayor, but Obama didn't want to wait.

Axelrod had discussed working for another candidate for the Senate seat that came open in 2004, a wealthy newcomer named Blair Hull who was prepared to spend millions on a race. But Axelrod didn't like him, and was eager to work with Obama -- initially for a small fee. When he began his campaign, Obama had "not a sou" in the bank, in the words of former congressman and appeals court judge Abner Mikva, an early Obama supporter. Mikva was impressed that the big-time consultant would go to work for Obama without any assurance that he would make any money.

"My involvement was a leap of faith," Axelrod later told Obama's biographer, David Mendell. Axelrod had fallen for another candidate -- fallen hard. "I thought that if I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life."

Instead of a typical business relationship, the two men and their wives have become close friends. According to Mikva, it was Axelrod who persuaded Michelle Obama to approve the idea of her husband running for president. When Mikva called Axelrod earlier this year to complain that the candidate looked exhausted and needed some rest, Axelrod rejected the implicit accusation that he was abusing Obama: "He's my friend, too, you know," he told Mikva.

The Obama presidential campaign has now taken over this fan's life. "It has really played havoc with my basketball and baseball," Axelrod acknowledges. But he has never before had a rooting interest in such a high-stakes game. Nor has he had a candidate he could root for with such enthusiasm -- one he could compare to Robert F. Kennedy. "You never want to compare yourself to an iconic figure like that, and Obama doesn't, but the spirit of possibility in difficult times is a powerful thing," Axelrod says. "And I see that again."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.