David Axelrod, veteran political commentator, senior advisor to President Barack Obama and, for many years, an Oak Parker, will headline the first of a new series of Wednesday Journal Conversations in September.
Axelrod is the founder and director of the non-partisan Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and is a regular on political panels on CNN. Years back, while he and his wife Susan raised their family in the Beye School neighborhood, Axelrod was a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
As a media and operations strategist for many local and national political campaigns, Axelrod was a very early supporter of Obama. He played a central role in the 2008 presidential campaign and then worked in the Obama White House.
Partnering with Dominican University in River Forest, Wednesday Journal is creating a series of “conversations” with notable people who have Oak Park and River Forest connections. Each session, and there will be three over the next year, will be moderated by Charlie Meyerson, a longtime radio and digital journalist and, himself an Oak Parker.
“This is a new way for the Journal to connect with our readers and invite some very interesting people to sit down for a conversation, said Dan Haley, publisher of the Journal.
The Axelrod event will be on Wednesday, Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. in the Lund Auditorium at Dominican, 7600 W. Division St., River Forest. General admission tickets are $25. A portion of the proceeds will go to Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), a non-profit founded by Susan Axelrod.
Sponsors of the series include Rush Oak Park Hospital, Democratic Party of Oak Park, Maya del Sol and the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation.
Copies of Axelrod’s 2015 memoir, Believer: My 40 Years in Politics, will be available for sale and signing courtesy of The Book Table in Oak Park.
Tickets at $25 are on sale now at oakpark.com/axelrod.
