Obama's Heterosexual Life Partner
CHICAGO - The senator calls before bedtime.
The cellphone in David Axelrod’s shirt pocket comes to life, sometimes before midnight, sometimes after. If the ring tone is “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder, he steps away from the dinner table or the barstool. It almost certainly means Senator Barack Obama is on the line, ready for another turn of a rolling conversation the two men have been having most every day for what has been a remarkable two years.
“When the phone rings at 11, I have a pretty good sense of who it’s going to be,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He does a lot of thinking and working late at night.”
As Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, heads into the final days of his race for the White House, an ever-widening sphere of aides surrounds him. But almost none is as responsible for his current station as Mr. Axelrod, whose title of chief strategist only hints at the extensive role he has played in the senator’s evolution: friend, adviser and confidant, always at the elbow of this candidate.
Continued...