Axelrods and advertisements

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: August 19, 2009

The latest salvo in the Republican firestorm against President Obama’s health care reform push is the news that Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod has ties to the consulting firm that’s been hired to produce a multi-million dollar ad campaign for the effort.

Axelrod, of course, is Obama’s right-hand man; he was the linchpin for Candidate Obama’s presidential strategy during the campaign, and he immediately moved into a high-level advisory role during the presidential transition.

From FoxNews.com:

AKPD Message and Media, founded by Axelrod, along with firm GMMB, were paid $12 million by Health Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care, a coalition that includes Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, to produce ads promoting President Obama’s health care reform.

The firms received over $300 million to manage ads for Obama’s presidential campaign.

But wait! There’s more!

Obama announced an agreement with PhRMA on June 22 to achieve $80 billion in savings as part of his reform agenda. On August 8, a coalition of interest groups including PhRMA pledged to spend $150 million to help Obama’s overhaul health care this fall.

Axelrod left the firm on Dec. 31, 2008, with the agreement that it owed him $2 million—and some Republican critics now question whether the firm was hired to indirectly fund his severance package.

The bottom line is that under this arrangement, Axelrod, who is instrumental in steering the one of the president’s top two domestic priorities, will likely end up with some of the money used to buy the ads promoting the priority.

INCONVENIENT REMINDER/HYPOCRISY ALERT: Lest we forget, the Obama Administration has staked out a hard line against lobbyists—sort of— in the senior staff. END INCONVENIENT REMINDER/HYPOCRISY ALERT

Here are more fun facts from the Fox News story:

Axelrod, a veteran journalist and former columnist with the Chicago Tribune, founded AKPD Message and Media in 1984 following his work managing Paul Simon’s victorious U.S. Senate campaign.

The firm, formerly known as Axelrod and Associates, provides consulting and advertising for Democratic candidates and causes. Axelrod’s son, Michael, joined AKPD in 2006 as the firm’s research director. AKPD also employed Obama’s presidential campaign manager David Plouffe as a partner beginning in 2003.

See? It’s all in the family.

What do you guys think about this? Is it a real problem, a perception problem, or not a problem at all for the president as he seeks to regain control of the health care reform battle? Vote in my poll below, and add your comments if you like.