Born in 1955, David Axelrod grew up in Manhattan and, from an early age, engaged passionately in politics. At age ten, he canvassed for New York mayoral candidate John Lindsay (Democrat) and, at age 13, sold campaign buttons and bumper stickers promoting Robert Kennedy for President. Axelrod's mother was a writer for PM, a left-wing New York newspaper, which was alleged to have ties to the Communist Party.

In 1977, Axelrod completed his B.A. in political studies at the University of Chicago. That same year, he received an internship at the Chicago Tribune. In 1982 he was promoted to become the Tribune’s youngest chief political writer. Don Rose, founder of the pro-communist Hyde Park Voices and a 1960s member the Alliance to End Repression, which was a suspected Communist Party front, has claimed that he and another prominent Chicago communist, David Canter, mentored Axelrod and guided his early political development during this time. “I...wrote a reference letter for him,” Rose stated, “that helped him win an internship at the Tribune, which was the next step in his journalism career.”

In 1984, dissatisfied with his career and the “corporatization of journalism” in general, Axelrod joined the Senate campaign of Illinois Representative Paul Simon. Originally hired as Communications Director, Axelrod was promoted to Co-Manager within the first two months. During the campaign, he worked alongside Rahm Emanuel, who would go on to become President Barack Obama’s chief of staff 25 years later.

Following Simon’s successful Senate bid, Axelrod in 1985 founded a political consultancy named Axelrod & Associates, which later became known as AKPD Message and Media. This firm specializes in "representing Democratic candidates and progressive causes." In 1987, Axelrod’s Chicago-based company got its first break when Axelrod was hired to run the re-election campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African-American mayor. Here, Axelrod worked with Don Rose and Marc Canter (David Canter's son), who had close associations with Mayor Washington and were involved in a coalition of communist and socialist groups supporting his mayoral campaigns in the 1980s.

Directing Washington’s successful re-election campaign propelled Axelrod’s political consultancy into the limelight. In the years that followed, Axelrod helped a number of African-American candidates win political office. Most prominent of these victorious Democratic campaigns were those of Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, and Deval Patrick, the first African-American elected governor of Massachusetts in 2006.

In addition to scores of Democratic politicians and other organizations, Axelrod and his consultancy were hired by the Democratic National Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, the AFL-CIO, the AFSCME, the SEIU, and the Working Families Party. Axelrod also came to advise the top echelon of politicians in the Democratic Party. He worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate Campaign, helped Rahm Emanuel win a House of Representatives seat in 2002, and directed John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign.

From the same Chicago address that his political consultancy occupied, Axelrod ran ASK Public Strategies, which discreetly produces advertising campaigns for corporate clients seeking to swing negative public opinion in their favor. Although Axelrod and his partners refuse to reveal the identity of any of their clients, public records confirm that ASK’s client list has included the Chicago Children’s Museum, Cablevision, AT&T, and the Chicago-based utility ComEd.

According to Business Week magazine, the secrecy surrounding ASK masks a significant crossover of Axelrod’s political connections and his corporate business...

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