David Axelrod

I'm a kibitzer with a broad portfolio.

This marketplace where people can buy insurance who don't have it today - a competitive marketplace: That's an idea that both sides embrace.

I see my job simply as helping disseminate the message of Barack Obama, working with the communications team to make sure that we're true to the ideals and the values and the programs that he wants to advance in this country. And that's the extent of my involvement.

Far be it from me to denigrate Senator McCain's advice on vice presidential nominees.

But you say, does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They're spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill, and we're on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.

Any time you have loose ballots, you have to worry about shenanigans. It's a shame such a hard-fought election has to come down to something like this.

I think President Obama is a committed, practicing nonideologue. He's consumed by neither tactics nor ideology. He is more concerned about outcomes than he is about process and categorizations.

We don't want to go back to the same policies and the same practices that drove our economy into a ditch, that punished the middle class, and that led us to this catastrophe. We have to keep moving forward.

But obviously, we're looking for all good ideas to help deal with our long-term debt problem. This is something that is going to affect our economy. It affects our kids. And we need to deal with it.

I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's going to take some time to work through it.

We agree with Simpson and Bowles and others who have looked at this. What's necessary is to stabilize the debt and then work from there. You can't balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy.

This ought to be a season for cooperation in terms of pushing our economy forward, job creation, steadying the middle class, and laying the groundwork for a better future. And that's what we want to work on with Republicans and Democrats.