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David Axelrod recalls the first time he met Barack Obama in 1992 when they had lunch: "I was really impressed by him," he says.

The veteran political consultant was struck that the president, who had been the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and was highly sought after by big law firms, instead decided to put together a voter registration drive and practice civil rights law at a little firm in Chicago.

The world of candidates, Axelrod tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies, divides into two candidates: "People who run for office because they want to be something, which is the more numerous category, and people who run for office because they want to do something," he says. "That is the smaller and more admirable group that I love to work with and for. It was clear he was going to be that kind of a person."

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Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Axelrod ended up crafting the media strategy for Obama's two presidential campaigns and spent two years in the White House as a senior adviser to the president. He gives stories and insights about his years with Obama in his new memoir Believer: My Forty Years in Politics offers plenty of stories and insights from his years with Obama.

Specifically, Axelrod recalls the moment in the 2008 campaign when he interrupted Obama and running-mate Joe Biden on a flight to tell them Sarah Palin was the Republican vice presidential nominee, which prompted Biden to say, "Who's Sarah Palin?"

Axelrod's book also recounts his early years as a political reporter and his work with other candidates, including presidential contender John Edwards (not a good experience) and plenty of rogues and colorful characters from his home base in Chicago, among them Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, and Rod Blagojevich, who eventually became governor and went to jail in part for trying to sell Obama's former U.S. Senate seat.

Axelrod is now director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, which he says he founded to inspire young Americans to consider participating in American politics.

Believer

My Forty Years in Politics

by David Axelrod

Hardcover, 509 pages | purchase

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Interview Highlights

On the transition from being a journalist to a political adviser

The first time I was at a rally with [Paul] Simon after I made the switch and realized that I could applaud, it was kind of a shock to my system because I was so used to maintaining at least the veneer of objectivity. I think every reporter has views, but you try to be as objective as you can.

On whether he believed in every candidate he represented

I always went through a process of trying to sell myself before I tried to sell anybody else, and I would get emotionally wrapped up in my campaigns and sometimes on behalf of candidates who weren't worthy of that.

On President Obama's first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012 for his re-election

We were always worried about the first debate because it historically is a killing field for presidents. Presidents aren't used to debating. Their opponents have generally been debating in primaries; presidents aren't used to being challenged by someone standing four feet away from them, being treated as a peer.

So presidents generally do badly in the first debate and we tried mightily to avoid that. But the prep sessions didn't go very well. There were a lot of testy exchanges with John Kerry who was playing Mitt Romney. We actually cautioned the president against engaging too much, which may have been a mistake, because we were worried about the testiness of those exchanges.

It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

- David Axelrod

We had a last prep session before the first debate in Denver, which we all thought was pretty appalling. ... I had the dubious honor of going in and talking to him for the group after the session and he said, "Well, I think that went pretty well." And I said, "Well, actually there are some things we need to work on yet." He didn't receive that news well and used a word that he has never used before or since and that I won't use here, but made clear how he felt about me at that moment, and he bolted out of the room and I didn't see him until the next morning.

I was kind of stunned by it because we'd known each other for so long, but I also knew that he really wasn't directing it at me so much as at his own frustration, because he knew we weren't where we needed to be. I think every single one of us, including the president, knew we weren't headed into Denver in good shape — and that, of course, turned out to be true.

On following the many different media platforms

Yes, you follow Twitter and you're aware that any little event somewhere could hijack a day's news, sometimes a week's news, or several weeks' news. It makes [for] a really, really difficult environment. It also means that if you're president — we used to talk about the "bully pulpit" — but you have to assemble your bully pulpit each time you want to communicate something because Americans aren't watching the same thing or aren't getting their news from the same place as they once did. So you have to speak through many different platforms.

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As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

I mean, who would've thought that the president of the United States would be on a show called Between Two Ferns to promote his health care plan? But the fact is he hit 10 million people with that appearance — many of whom were the target for younger people who we needed to sign up for that health care plan. So it's a far more complex and challenging environment than past presidents and past generations have faced.

On how Axelrod restrained himself while on Meet the Press and other shows

It was hard, but you know, when you're speaking for the president of the United States, you know that one misstatement can send armies marching and markets tumbling — and that is a very sobering realization.

So yes, I felt constrained when I was on those programs to color within the lines and not to be too venturesome because I knew some off-handed remark could have real consequences. ... It was a discipline that was hard for me because I'm a congenital smart aleck and I love tossing off good lines — and this was decidedly not the place to do it.

On what he's been called in the media, including Axelfraud, Streetfighter, Message Maven, Political Protector, Marxist Mentor and Lefty Lumberjack

The "Axelfraud" thing sticks in my mind because those guys were shouting it at me when I was on the steps of the capitol in Massachusetts. I hadn't heard Lefty Lumberjack, it seems like an oxymoron to me. But I'm surprised though that on your list there aren't [other descriptive words]. "Rumpled" almost always comes up and "stained" is another one because generally you can find remnants of my last meal somewhere on me. The president loves that. He's always inspecting me so he can ask me what it was that I had that he's looking at. So those are the ones that are most prominent in my mind. It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

On leaving politics to direct the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago

I really am happy to be where I am today and I think my family is happy that I am where I am today. I asked them to make so many sacrifices — and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to inspire these kids and spend time with my family.

If people call me and ask me for advice, of course I'll give it to them, but I'm not going to get on that carousel again. I had such a singularly great experience with Obama. I had a relationship with him that I'll never have with anyone else, and I'd rather go out on top and move on.

The Los Angeles City Council is currently considering whether to raise the minimum wage to $15.25 an hour by 2019. It would follow Seattle and San Francisco, two cities that approved $15 minimum wages in the past year.

The spread of a higher minimum wage is a huge victory for the labor unions backing these measures — but it is unlikely most of the people getting raises will ever be part of organized labor.

The idea of a $15 minimum wage first came to the public's attention in a series of fast-food strikes starting in 2012. Those fry cooks and cashiers didn't just walk off the job by themselves — they were part of a multimillion-dollar effort orchestrated by unions.

But none of those restaurants have unionized, and they probably never will, says David Rolf, a vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

"Since at least the early 1980s, winning unions for the first time in the private sector has been a herculean task," Rolf says. "The political process provides an alternative vehicle."

Rusty Hicks is the new head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents over 300 unions. While some union leaders say organizing is dead, he says unions must focus on it. Ben Bergman/Southern California Public Radio/ KPCC hide caption

itoggle caption Ben Bergman/Southern California Public Radio/ KPCC

It was voters who approved San Francisco's $15 minimum wage in November and in SeaTac, Wash., a year earlier, after a campaign led by Rolf.

"We can't be the movement that's just about us," Rolf says. "The labor movement that workers flocked to by the tens of millions in the 1930s wasn't known for negotiating 500-page contracts. They were known for fighting for the eight-hour day, fighting to end child labor."

Rolf is controversial among labor leaders because he's not shy about saying collective bargaining as we know it is dead.

"Any model that shrinks for 50 years in a row in all 50 states is probably not part of the future," he says.

In the mid-20th century, about 1 in 3 American workers belonged to a union. Last year, only about 1 in 10 did, which is the lowest number in nearly a century.

Even so, Rusty Hicks, the new head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, says unions should focus on organizing.

"There is a big debate going on within the broader labor movement about, how do you adapt to a global economy of the 21st century?" Hicks says. "I believe that collective bargaining is not dead."

And Hicks says that while unions may be on their way out in the rest of the country, they're not in LA, where 16 percent of the area's workers are unionized. That number has held steady for more than a decade, which counts as a victory these days.

"LA is on the cutting edge of organizing in this country, from the port drivers, to hotel workers and everything in between," Hicks says.

But it might not be in unions' best interest to be leading the $15 fight, says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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"In effect, what you have now is the SEIU — its hospital membership ... or its membership working for the department of motor vehicles — [saying that] their dues money is helping to raise the wages of fast food workers, and not their own wages," he says.

This is because most unionized workers earn far more than the minimum wage. According to a report by UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, union workers in LA earn an average of more than $27 an hour.

Still, Lichtenstein says, having a higher floor could be beneficial in future contract negotiations.

"If you can raise the wages in those sectors which have been pulling down the general wage level — i.e. fast food or retail, for that matter — then it makes it easier for unions to create a higher standard and [to] then go on and try to get more stuff," he says.

It's also rare now for workers to stay in the same job for their whole career, so people are likely to drift in and out of unions.

For this reason, Robert Matsuda, a studio violinist represented by the American Federation of Musicians, is all for a $15 per hour wage.

"I might have to take a minimum-wage job in the near future, so it might directly affect me," he says.

Even though Matsuda works for well above the minimum wage now, he worries that may not last. He's getting fewer gigs as more film and TV scoring work gets outsourced overseas.

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restaurant workers

organized labor

unions

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minimum wage

Taking advantage of new rules issued by the Obama administration, Netflix says it has expanded its service to Cuba.

In a press release, the company said any Cuban with an Internet connection and access to international payment methods would have access to a "curated" selection of movies and TV shows for $7.99 a month.

"We are delighted to finally be able to offer Netflix to the people of Cuba, connecting them with stories they will love from all over the world," Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. "Cuba has great filmmakers and a robust arts culture and one day we hope to be able to bring their work to our global audience of over 57 million members."

Of course, there are huge hurdles: According to Freedom House, a nonprofit that advocates for the expansion of freedom, only 15 percent of Cubans had access to the Internet in 2012. Not only that, but a Google study found that the Internet in Cuba is the slowest in the Western Hemisphere.

Then there's the price. As Bloomberg notes, "Cubans earn a monthly salary that averages about $20."

Netflix spokeswoman Victoria Ferreira said Cubans who sign up for the service will have access to content that has been made available to other parts of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

She said that the Netflix content in Cuba will depend on the company's licensing deals.

"We are not working with the Cuban government on content," she said, adding that "any questions on censorship are speculative and we can't answer them."

All of this comes as the two countries announced plans for a rapprochement. Netflix has become the first major American company to expand its operations to the island since the U.S. loosened some of its restrictions.

Cuba

Netflix

Continued job growth has boosted prospects for the U.S. economy, but it continues to face some tricky crosswinds. The big drop in oil prices and a stronger dollar both help the economy and hurt it. Add to that the recent slowdown in global growth.

Lots of economists have suggested the big drop in oil prices is a gift to consumers that will propel the economy. David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors is one of them. He argues cheaper oil will ultimately be a positive.

"The U.S. comes out a big winner on a falling energy price but it takes time to filter through and into the full economy," Kotok says.

And it starts out as a negative shock to the oil sector. Kotok says cuts in production and energy company payrolls will cost the U.S. economy up to $150 billion. That's made investors nervous. As oil prices fell sharply in January they sent stock markets gyrating.

But as lower energy prices filter through the economy, Kotok says, the positive effects, worth $400 billion, will overwhelm the negative.

Economist Liz Ann Sonders, the chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, agrees.

"The U.S. economy is 68 percent consumer spending, so right there you know that falling oil prices is a benefit," she says.

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That puts money in consumers' pockets. And low energy prices also benefit many businesses, whose hiring will more than offset the losses in the energy sector. But, Sonders says, the oil and gas layoffs are making headlines.

"The crash in oil prices happened fast and furiously and now we're getting those series of layoffs and rig counts are dropping," Sonders says. "And now people are concerned: Is this going to carry further into the economy, how much of this is a function of weak global growth?"

And, there's good reason to be concerned, says Jeffrey Snider, head of global investment research at Alhambra Partners.

"Whenever you see oil prices collapse, especially by something like 60 percent, something else is going on. And so therefore any benefit that might come to consumers in the form of lower energy prices is being overwhelmed by whatever it is that's causing oil to fall in the first place," Snider says.

And falling oil prices are a clear sign of a dangerously weak global economy, he says.

"You have economies from Europe, Japan, China that are either in or very close to recession or some form of growth that is significantly degraded," Snider says.

And, he says, recent data suggest U.S. consumers are saving most of their windfall from lower energy prices, not spending it to fuel growth.

"And that's an indication of very cautious behavior," he says.

That caution suggests underlying problems in the U.S. economy, including slow wage growth, he says.

Snider says another crosswind is chilling profits for American exporters and multinationals — the strong dollar.

Sonders agrees that earnings at multinationals are being hit, but she argues a strong dollar signals confidence in the U.S. economy that is historically associated with strong growth.

"We're not an export-oriented economy. Most other countries that want to try to lower the value of their currency [do it] because a bigger part of their economy is export-oriented, so they want that weaker currency to boost exports."

In the U.S., exports account for just 13 percent of economic activity.

Sonders says the U.S. is likely to weather the crosswinds in the global economy and experience solid growth in 2015. Kotok goes even further. He says the U.S. will show gradual improvement for the rest of the decade.

"We're gonna do it with a stronger currency, little inflation and low interest rates. It's a pretty picture for the United States." Kotok says.

The strong jobs figures reported on Friday — with more than a million jobs created in the past three months — bolster that optimistic view.

oil prices