Obama adviser recounts time with former Philly Mayor John Street

Veteran political consultant David Axelrod crafted the media strategy for Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, and spent two years in the White House as a senior adviser to the president. He recalls those events in a new memoir called “Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.”

But Axelrod also spent many years working on state and local campaigns, and when our own Dave Davies interviewed him for NPR’s “Fresh Air,” they spent some time on Axelrod’s ventures into Philadelphia mayoral politics.

Working with John Street wasn’t the easiest at first. Axelrod recounts quitting after his first night with the mayoral hopeful, who had him up until 3 a.m. changing minute details in the announcement speech. Street tracked Axelrod to an airport and apologized.

“It’s all true,” Street replied in an email to Fresh Air. “We had a rough start but it all worked out in the end.”

Hear Axelrod talk to Dave Davies about this, and about how finding an FBI bug in Street’s office help him win re-election in 2003.