Axelrod to Leave White House in 2011

Come next year, David Axelrod will return to what he does best: winning an election for Barack Obama. Sometime in 2011, the President’s top advisor is expected to leave the White House and return to Chicago where he will reprise his 2008 role as the architect of Obama’s campaign, this time as the incumbent. Axelrod has long been a polarizing figure in Washington, where he was a favorite among many of the White House aides—particularly the speechwriting team—but also seen as a scheming presence. According to Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, Gen. David Petraeus once called him “a complete spin doctor.”