Brazile Says ‘No’ To Democratic Post

By Jamal E. WatsonSpecial to the NNPA from the Amsterdam News NEW YORK (NNPA) – In the wake of the Democrats’ stunning presidential election defeat, Donna Brazile has been suggested as a possible candidate to replace outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. But in an interview with the Amsterdam News, Brazile, a political strategist who ran Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000, said that she doesn’t want the job. ”I’m honored to be on anyone’s list,” said Brazile, 45. ”I want to rebuild the Democratic Party, but I have no interest in the job at this time.” She said that the job might be well-suited for someone who currently resides outside of Washington D.C. and can bring fresh perspective to the party. Democratic Party officials have been looking for a leader to help energize the party after Senator John Kerry was unable to defeat Bush and Democrats failed in their efforts to take back the Congress from Republicans. Brazile’s name quickly surfaced as a viable candidate among other high-profile names, including former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and former Clinton aide Harold Ickes. Brazile rose to international prominence when she became the first African-American woman to lead a major presidential campaign. She is currently chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute and teaches at Georgetown University. She started Brazile and Associates, a consulting firm whose mission is to empower grassroots advocates and train citizens to participate in the political process. ”Donna is one of the smartest, wittiest and most sensitive political operatives in the business,” said Rep. Richard Gephardt, a retiring Democratic congressman from Missouri. ”She remains one of my favorite friends.” Born poor in New Orleans, Brazile became interested in politics at the age of 16, though she faced numerous incidents of racism and sexism even as she climbed the ranks of Democratic Party politics. She recounts in her best-selling memoir, “Cooking With Grease,” why she felt that African-Americans were disenfranchised in the 2000 presidential election. She said that there were widespread reports of voter intimidation and was glad that Al Gore, in the early portion of the evening, did not concede the presidency, even though major news networks had declared Bush the winner. ”For Fannie Lou Hamer; for Martin Luther King Jr.; for Emmett Till; Rosa Parks; Medgar Evers; Septima Clark; Malcolm X; and every living soul who cared about the right to vote, I thanked God for this miracle.” In her book, Brazile recounts the conversation that Gore had with Brazile upon appointing her as his campaign manager. He told her: ”The reason I named you campaign manager is because you clearly know how to organize, you know how to put together a campaign. I want to focus on getting the campaign under control, removing all the factions we had. You report to me. I didn’t hire you because you’re Black; I hired you because you’re the best.” Now a sought-after pundit on television, Brazile says that she is focusing her energy on helping Democrats win the next election. She said that Democrats should remain true to their core values and resist attempts to move further to the right. She sad, ”We cannot misread this election and believe that we must become Republican-like.”###