More seriously

Axelrod warns: Take Trump more seriously

By Nick Gass

For David Axelrod, Donald Trump's rise among Republican voters could best be explained with the rise of another nearly a decade ago: Barack Obama.

In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, the former Obama adviser wrote of his advice for the then-prospective presidential candidate in 2006, in which he laid out the Illinois senator's case for a White House run.

"Here’s the gist. Open-seat presidential elections are shaped by perceptions of the style and personality of the outgoing incumbent. Voters rarely seek the replica of what they have," Axelrod wrote. "They almost always seek the remedy, the candidate who has the personal qualities the public finds lacking in the departing executive."

In other words, Axelrod added, if he had "only reread my own words, written nine years ago to another aspiring candidate, I would have taken the Trump candidacy more seriously from the start."

Just as a "young" and "energetic" John F. Kennedy succeeded a "grandfatherly" and "somnolent" Dwight D. Eisenhower, so did "puritanical" Jimmy Carter follow the Watergate-sullied administration of Gerald Ford, Axelrod argued.

"So who among the Republicans is more the antithesis of Mr. Obama than the trash-talking, authoritarian, give-no-quarter Mr. Trump?" he asked, noting later, "Relentlessly edgy, confrontational and contemptuous of the niceties of governance and policy making, Mr. Trump is the perfect counterpoint to a president whose preternatural cool and deliberate nature drive his critics mad."

Unlike Obama, Axelrod hastened to add, Trump would appear to face a tougher fight in the general election, citing poll numbers to that effect.

"It’s far too early to picture the iconic Trump logo affixed to the White House portico," he said. "But as the most ardent and conspicuous counterpoint to the man in the White House today, the irrepressible Mr. Trump already has defied all expectations."