UPCOMING WDC EVENTS 

Tuesday, June 9     

Join WDC for Dinner and "A Report from the AG's Office" with  Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh  and Biennial General Membership Meeting

 

Dinner with Brian Frosh -7:00 pm

Bethesda Marriott (at Pooks Hill)

5151 Pooks Hill Road, Bethesda

Free Parking 

Cost: Members $32; Guests $37

To make your reservation, send your check to Judith Heimann, 6900 Marbury Road, Bethesda, MD 20817 or reserve online at www.womansdemocraticclub.org by 5:00 pm Thursday, June 4

Questions about the event? Call Natalie Bouquet, 301-907-7856

This will also be our biennial general membership meeting to elect officers for the 2015-2017 term and vote on a change in the annual dues to create a category of dues for members aged 35 or younger. Please click here for the official announcement of the meeting and click here for the report of the nominating committee. 

Thursday, June 11  

Happy Hour    

5:30 to 7 PM  

Lebanese Taverna

7141 Arlington Road, Bethesda

Want to meet new people and talk politics?  Join us at the next WDC Happy Hour. Every second Thursday of each month, Democrats who are passionate about politics gather to relax and network with WDC members and their guests. Whether you want to meet elected officials, make new friends, form new business contacts or just have fun, the WDC Happy Hour is the perfect place to meet and greet fellow Democrats.      

Tuesday, June 23  

"Saving for Retirement-Simple Sidesteps to Avoid Investment Missteps," presented by WDC Member, Jean Kahl, Certified Financial Planner and Principal of CVI Financial in Gaithersburg.

The Woman's Democratic Club, the Montgomery County Young Democrats, the African-American Democratic Club, and the Muslim Democratic Club are sponsoring a summer series of educational programs focused on financial literacy entitled, "Money & Politics Done Right." WDC is pleased to present a program featuring certified financial planner and Club member, Jean Kahl, on avoiding common, and costly, mistakes in retirement saving and investing. Since the pension has largely met its demise, and most of us are now responsible for our own retirement security, this is a program that no member should miss.

To RSVP or for questions, please contact Lucy Freeman at dorset4708@yahoo.com , 301-654-8115.

WDC will make information on the other sponsoring Club's financial literacy programs available when the programs are finalized.

 POLITICAL STRATEGIST DAVID AXELROD IS A "BELIEVER"

David Axelrod and WDC Vice-Presdent Linda Kolko

At the Woman's Democratic Club luncheon on May 16, 2015, David Axelrod spoke about his new book,Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, which recounts the idealism behind his love of politics, his twenty-year friendship with Barack Obama, and how their warm partnership inspired and propelled them to great heights.

 

David Axelrod was born in New York City and, in 1960, when he was five years old, his babysitter took him to see John F. Kennedy, who was then locked in a dead heat for the presidency with Richard M. Nixon. From that moment on, Axelrod was hooked on politics. He wanted to be part of politics: "to grab the wheel of history and turn it in the right direction." Over fifty years later, in 2012, he stood on the stage in Iowa watching his and President Barack Obama's final campaign stop, knowing he had accomplished his goal.

Before he became a political strategist, Axelrod worked as a journalist for The Chicago Tribune, where he wrote for eight years as a reporter and political columnist. He also covered "murder and mayhem" which he described as "great preparation for covering Chicago politics". In 1984, he left the Tribune to work as the campaign manager for Paul Simon's U.S. Senate race. He moved then into the realm of politics as a political strategist and never looked back. He opened his own political consulting firm to work on political campaigns including Paul Simon's run for President.  

David Axelrod at Podium

Axelrod first met Barack Obama in 1992 as a favor to a friend. Obama had finished Harvard Law School and had returned to Chicago to lead a non-profit voter registration organization and to work at a civil rights law firm. In 1994 an opening for state senator came up.  Obama pulled off a win showing his skills as a community organizer. As Axelrod noted, both he and Obama saw politics as a calling, not as a business, and he viewed Obama as a politician who served in office not as a chance to "be somebody," but as a chance to "do something."  

In the early summer of 2002, Obama asked Axelrod again for advice. He had been asked by the mutual friend who introduced Axelrod and Obama to speak at an anti-Iraq war rally in October of that year. Axelrod advised Obama on the speech and realized what a gifted writer and thinker he was. Axelrod agreed to work with Obama when he ran for an open US Senate seat. It was during this race when hearing Obama talk about how he connected with white, rural voters in southern Illinois that he realized how comfortable Obama was with all kinds of people and that he could tell his story in the context of the larger American story.  

During Obama's successful 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Axelrod first suggested that Obama use "Yes We Can" as a campaign message, and he first proposed using it in a campaign ad. Obama hesitated, believing the phrase to be "corny." As Axelrod recounted, Michelle Obama happened to have accompanied her husband to the meeting to review the campaign ad, and after Axelrod and Obama went back and forth, Obama turned to his wife for her opinion. "Not corny," was Michelle's response, and "Yes We Can" became a hallmark of Obama's Senate and first Presidential campaign.

After working hard to secure the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama became a national figure overnight. In 2008 Obama ran for President and, with Axelrod serving as chief campaign strategist, won election as the first black President of the United States. Axelrod followed him to the White House as senior adviser, where he served for two years. Axelrod guided Obama to a re-election victory in 2012, at which point, he retired from politics to found and serve as the first director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago.

As he assessed the Obama presidency, Axelrod pointed to several notable accomplishments for which Obama should be credited. Axelrod credited Obama with the economic resurrection of the economy after 2008, the dire condition of which Obama did not learn about until after he was elected. In particular, Axelrod praised Obama's decision to save the American automobile industry. As Axelrod pointed out, much of the Midwest economy is dependent on the automobile industry, and it is a landmark American industry. Obama chose to fund a federal loan program, and in so doing, helped the industry return to profitability and saved over one million American jobs.  

Axelrod spoke at length about the passage of the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He noted that seven other presidents had failed to reform health care, but Obama had succeeded. Axelrod had firsthand experience with the health care system because of his daughter's experience with severe epilepsy, the medical treatments for which had almost bankrupted his family. The passage of the health care legislation was a golden moment for Obama. When asked to speculate what will be the result of an adverse Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, Axelrod stated that a Supreme Court decision upholding the tax subsidies for low-income people buying insurance through HealthCare.gov will give the Republicans cover as they will not have to change the law. However, if the Court strikes down the subsidies for those purchasing through the federal exchange, the Republicans will either have to amend the law or face sixteen million unhappy people who will lose their ability to purchase health care plans with their federal tax subsidy. He stated that the principle of legislative intent is really important in deciding the case, and the Court needs to consider what will happen to the people who rely on the subsidies.  

David Axelrod greeting WDC members.

Regarding police and community relations: Axelrod's noted that his first column for the Chicago Tribune forty-three years ago addressed police brutality. Axelrod acknowledged that this is a long-standing problem, and there has to be a balance between the needs of the community and the police. He stated that although the criminal justice system needs to be reformed, we need to recognize that the police put their lives on the line every day for all of us. The prevalence of guns is also an underlying problem.  

About the future of the Democratic Party, Axelrod believes that the solution to fighting the Republicans and their financial backers like the Koch brothers, is to work from the "bottom up" to build leaders and win elections at all levels of government beginning with local elections, such as School Boards, City Councils, State Legislatures, and so forth. Candidates from these levels are the breeding ground for candidates at the next level of the political hierarchy.

When asked about how he would advise the President on the political obstruction he is currently facing, he replied he does not know. At least the Republicans showed their hand early on, and Obama knew what he would be dealing with, but he believes that the Republicans will not do anything that allows Obama to claim bi-partisan action, even if they agree on a policy level.  

Ever the idealist about what politics and government can do to serve the people, Axelrod concluded his talk with a reiteration of his core belief that, "It's not about the power; it's what you do with it."