The likely nexus between comments of Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick.

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post about the likely nexus in the nearly word for word and without attribution comments of Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and, to a lesser extent, Obama and John Edwards:

The likely nexus: top Obama adviser [and strategist] David Axelrod, who played a similar role for Patrick in 2006 and for Edwards in 2004 . . . authored many of the phrases the candidate borrowed from Edwards and Patrick . . . .