Politics

Top Obama aides face off in 2015 British election

Christopher Bedford Former Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller News Foundation
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Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod is set to square off against former colleague Jim Messina in the next British elections. The match follows Axelrod’s decision to sign on with the U.K.’s liberal Labour Party, which is challenging the ruling Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party, which is more in line with moderate Republicans than American conservatives, hired Messina on as an election adviser in August 2013. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Messina were criticized for the hire.

Axelrod, who advised President Barack Obama on his Senate win and both presidential wins, will be working for Labour leader Ed Miliband as a senior strategic adviser, helping to bring the president’s message of inequality and wealth-envy to the U.K.

Axelrod told leftist British newspaper The Guardian that he made the decision “because I have had some long conversations with Ed Miliband over the course of the past year and it was less about politics, and more about this issue of how in the 21st century you create healthy economies in which opportunity is broadly available, and people can stay ahead of the cost of living.”

“Miliband understands that a growing economy demands that you have to have broad prosperity,” Axelrod continued. “We can’t just have prosperity hoarded by a few where people at the top are getting wealthier and wealthier but people in the middle are getting squeezed. This is a problem not just for Britain but everywhere in advanced economies, including here in the U.S.”

“”That is how we won in the U.S. — Barack Obama articulated a vision which had, at its core, the experience of everyday people. And everyday people responded, they organised and they overcame the odds. I see the same thing happening in Britain.”

Messina, on the other hand, is a big data guru, who will work to bring the integration of social media, email, TV and other forms of communication to the Conservative’s 2015 campaign.

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