Former White House Insiders to Talk Politics and Primaries

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David Axelrod and Ari Fleischer.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, and Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, will share their political insights and experiences as part of the student-sponsored Distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Arkansas.

The free public event will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, in Bud Walton Arena. No tickets are required.

U of A political science professor Janine Parry will serve as moderator during the event, which will have a question and answer format. Members of the audience will have an opportunity to submit questions during the event.

Parry says the presidential primary race and the candidates are two of the topics Axelrod and Fleischer expect to cover. They will also discuss the ways national politics haves changed in the past 20 years, as well as their own experiences during their extensive political careers.

The event comes five days before Arkansas voters go to the polls to pick candidates in the “Super Tuesday” Presidential Primary.

The Distinguished Lecture Series is a student-sponsored program. Speakers are chosen by a committee of students, faculty and staff, and the events are funded by a student-approved fee, appropriated by the Programs Allocation Board.

David Axelrod

David Axelrod was born in New York City and graduated from the University of Chicago. Before entering politics he worked eight years as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, covering national, state and local politics.

Axelrod founded the Chicago consulting firm AKPD Message and Media in 1985 where he managed media strategy and communications for more than 150 campaigns, with a focus on progressive candidates and causes.

In 2004, Axelrod helped then-state Sen. Barack Obama win his U.S. Senate campaign. Two years later Axelrod served as media adviser to Deval Patrick, who was elected Massachusetts' first African American governor and its first Democratic governor in 16 years.

Axelrod was senior strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. He served as senior adviser to President Obama until 2011. During this time he was the administration's most frequent presence on influential Sunday talk shows as well as late night weekly talk shows.

Axelrod currently serves as director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and as a senior political analyst for CNN. He is also the host of “The Axe Files” podcast.  Last year he published a New York Times bestselling memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.

Axelrod is married to Susan Landau and has three children, Lauren, Michael and Ethan.

ARI FLEISCHER

As former White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer was the primary spokesperson for President George W. Bush and delivered the daily White House briefings from 2001 to 2003. He previously served as the Bush campaign spokesman in 1999 and 2000. In his almost four years working for George W. Bush, he served as spokesman during the historic presidential recount, September 11, two wars and the anthrax attack. His best-selling book, Taking Heat, details his years in the White House and reached No. 7 on The New York Times best-seller list.

Since leaving the White House, he still finds time to stay involved in politics. After the 2012 presidential election, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus appointed Fleischer as co-chair of the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project to find out why Republicans lost that year and to chart a path forward for the Republican Party. He appears frequently on many of the leading political and news shows.

He has also worked on Capitol Hill as a press secretary to three congressmen and one United States senator.

Fleischer is a native of Pound Ridge, New York, and a 1982 graduate of Vermont's Middlebury College. Now president of his own firm, Ari Fleischer Communications Inc., he offers advice to clients in the corporate and sports worlds on how to handle the press.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.