And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your

host, David Axelrod.

In some ways, Rachel Manno needs no introduction.

She's such a powerful presence in our public debate today.

Her reporting has been impactful.

Her commentary is must watch TV for people on the left.

But she's also one of the most interesting people that I know.

We just got an extraordinary story.

Her journey is unlikely.

So it was fun to sit down in New York last week with Rachel to talk not just about the

story she covers, but about her own story.

Rachel Manno, so good to see you.

It's great to see you, Dave.

And now an icon of the left, the explainer and chief.

But how unlikely is it that someone like you would spring from Castro Valley, California,

explain Castro Valley when you were growing up to our listeners?

This is an unincorporated area in the San Francisco Bay Area that is best known for being

the intersection of two very unpleasant freeways.

While I lived there as a kid, my town went from kind of like chicken ranch rural.

We had a ranch rodeo parade every year and everything.

It went from that into housing developments into bedroom community for the rest of the

Bay Area with a lot of tension that went with it.

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