Contacts:
Leslie Weddell
(719) 389-6038
Leslie.Weddell@ColoradoCollege.edu
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – April. 20, 2009 – David Axelrod, chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama, provides an insider's look at the 2008 presidential election in his talk “How Change Won,” at 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 24, in Shove Memorial Chapel, 1010 N. Nevada Ave. on the Colorado College campus. The event is free, buttickets are required. Tickets are available at the Worner Campus Center Information Desk, 902 N. Cascade Ave.
Before moving to the White House as senior advisor to the president, Axelrod served as the chief strategist for the 2008 Obama campaign and as senior advisor to the Obama-Biden presidential transition.
Since 1988, Axelrod has been senior partner at the consulting firm AKP&D Message and Media, based in Chicago. In that capacity, he managed media strategy and communications for more than 150 local, state and national campaigns, with a focus on progressive candidates and causes.
In 2006, Axelrod ran the independent expenditure media program for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helping Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives. That same year, he served as media adviser to Deval Patrick, who was elected Massachusetts's first Democratic governor in 16 years and the state's first-ever African American governor. In 2004, when President Obama was a member of the Illinois State Senate, Axelrod helped him defeat a primary field of six other Democrats and go on to a landslide win in his U.S. Senate campaign.
Before entering politics in 1984, Axelrod spent eight years as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, where he covered national, state and local politics. In 1981, he became the youngest political writer and columnist in the paper's history.
Active in charitable work in Chicago, Axelrod has supported Special Olympics and Misericordia. In 1998, he and his wife, Susan, helped found Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), which has raised more than $9 million so far for scientists searching for a cure.
Axelrod was born in New York City on Feb. 22, 1955, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School and the University of Chicago. He served as an adjunct professor of communication studies at Northwestern University and has lectured on political media at Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania.
For information, directions or disability accommodation at the event, members of the public may call (719) 389-6607.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,985 undergraduate students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks. The college also offers a master of arts in teaching degree. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.edu <http://www.ColoradoCollege.edu>.