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U.S. Senate

Obama political strategists aid opposing U.K. candidates

Kim Hjelmgaard, and Jane Onyanga-Omara
USAToday
President Obama's former political strategist, David Axelrod, in Chicago on Feb. 4, 2015.

LONDON — The two men vying to be Britain's next prime minister have each hired a former political adviser to President Obama to carry them to victory in what is shaping up as a tight election Thursday.

Jim Messina, who led Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, is working for Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party is fighting to retain power.

David Axelrod, who came up with Obama's galvanizing campaign slogan, "Yes We Can," has been hired by Ed Miliband, leader of the left-leaning Labor Party.

"I've tried to help them think through how best to deliver their message," Axelrod told USA TODAY in an email Tuesday.

Axelrod, the founding director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, worked as a political journalist at the Chicago Tribune, before becoming a political strategist.

He helped elect Congressman Paul Simon to the U.S. Senate in 1984, and went on to run successful campaigns for a number of Democratic Party candidates before overseeing Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential race.

Messina, a University of Montana graduate, is serving as a senior adviser to Cameron through his Messina Group. The organization's website says he has overseen and consulted on political campaigns from Alaska to New York and "established the modern presidential campaign" by merging politics with technology, helping to secure Obama's re-election .

After Miliband unveiled a stone this week with the party's pledges etched on to it, Messina tweeted: "Volunteers working our targeted seats on beautiful day in London. No need for stone tablet gimmicks, record speaks for itself. #GE2015."

Attempts to reach Messina were unsuccessful.

British voters and some politicians have expressed frustration at the increasing influence of what they consider the aggressive and negative style of U.S. presidential campaigns.

"What I'm seeing in this election is the influence of these big American advisers and it's becoming the most negative, personal and nasty campaign I've ever seen," United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage leader told the London radio station LBC in March.

Jim Messina, President Obama's 2012 campaign manager, speaks to the 2012 Democratic National Convention on Sept. 6, 2012.

The Electoral Commission forbids British parties from purchasing media airtime for political ads and broadcasts, but that doesn't extend to digital platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. The Conservatives, for example, have repeatedly attacked Labor's governing record and public spending claims on YouTube.

Campaigns in Britain also are much shorter than across the Atlantic.

"The absence of wall-to-wall television ads removes one primary tool for the campaign toolbox familiar to Americans," Axelrod said. "There is a blessed brevity to the campaign, as compared to the U.S., where the media already is breathlessly charting the doings of candidates a year and a half before the election."

"When comparing digital political campaigning in different countries, it's impossible to say that one country is more sophisticated than another. What we do see is sophistication as technology advances and people's use of technology evolves," said Elizabeth Linder, a politics and government specialist for Facebook.

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