Donna Brazile

Donna Brazile
File:Donna Brazile 1.JPG
Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee Acting
In office April 5, 2011 – May 4, 2011
Preceded by	Tim Kaine
Succeeded by	Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Personal details
Born	Donna Lease Brazile (1959-12-15) December 15, 1959 Kenner, Louisiana, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	Official website

Donna Lease Brazile (born December 15, 1959) is an American author, academic, and political analyst who is Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She was the first African American to direct a major presidential campaign, acting as campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000. She briefly served as interim Chair for the DNC in the spring of 2011.

Early life

Brazile was born in Kenner, Louisiana, the daughter of Jean Marie (Brown) and Lionel Joseph Brazile, the third of nine children. Her family's surname was "Braswell" several generations back. Brazile became interested in politics at the age of nine when a local candidate for office promised to build a neighborhood playground. She participated in a TRIO Upward Bound program while in high school. Brazile earned a bachelor's degree in industrial psychology from Louisiana State University in 1981, and is a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. After graduating from Louisiana State University, Brazile worked for several advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., and was instrumental in the successful campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday.

Brazile volunteered for the Jimmy Carter–Walter Mondale presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980 as a teenager.

Political strategist

Brazile has worked on several presidential campaigns for Democratic candidates, including Jesse Jackson in 1984, Walter Mondale–Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and for Richard Gephardt in the 1988 Democratic primary.

After Gephardt lost the primary in 1988, Brazile served as deputy field director of the Michael Dukakis general election campaign. On October 20, 1988, she made headlines by telling a group of reporters that George H. W. Bush needed to "fess up" about unsubstantiated rumors of an extramarital affair.

Said Brazile, "The American people have every right to know if Barbara Bush will share that bed with him in the White House." The Dukakis campaign immediately disavowed her remarks and Dukakis fired her from his campaign staff shortly after the story broke. Four years later, the same issue, the relationship of George H.W. Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald, would be briefly rehashed during the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, who had his own extramarital affair rumors.

In the 1990s, Brazile served as Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, where she helped guide the District's budget and local legislation on Capitol Hill. She also served as an advisor for Bill Clinton's campaign for the presidency in 1992 and for re-election in 1996.

In 1999, Brazile was appointed deputy campaign manager and was later promoted to campaign manager of the 2000 presidential campaign of Vice-President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.

After the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Brazile was appointed as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority by Kathleen Blanco from 2005 to 2009.

Democratic National Committee service

After the post-election fight over votes in the 2000 United States presidential election in Florida, Brazile was appointed Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. In the 2008 election, she served as a superdelegate for her work for Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

As a delegate for the Democratic National Convention, Brazile consistently refrained from declaring her preferred Democratic presidential candidate. In an interview with political satirist Stephen Colbert, Brazile stated, "Look, I'm a woman, so I like Hillary. I'm black; I like Obama. But I'm also grumpy, so I like John McCain."

For several weeks in the spring of 2011, she served as interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee. As Vice-Chair of the DNC, she led the organization during the transition between outgoing Chair Tim Kaine, who resigned to run for the U.S. Senate, and his successor, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was not permitted to ascend to the post until at least fifteen days after being nominated on April 5, 2011. Following Wasserman-Schultz' installation as DNC Chair, Brazile returned to her post as vice-chair.

2008 presidential election

The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan initially caused the delegates from these two states to be disqualified from being seated at the Democratic Convention due to the states moving their primaries against DNC Party rules. Brazile stated, "We need to send a message that you can't defy the rules," adding, "I have pissed off just about every state in my career."

At the Rules Committee meeting to decide on the final allocations for these states she was quoted: "My momma taught me to play by the rules and respect those rules. My mother taught me, and I'm sure your mother taught you, that when you decide to change the rules, middle of the game, end of the game, that is referred to as cheating."

She was strongly critical of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which places limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in the context of the November 2009 Affordable Health Care for America Act.

University teaching and affiliations

Brazile also served as a lecturer at the University of Maryland, College Park, a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and is an Adjunct Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown University. She is member of the advisory board of the Washington & Lee University Mock Convention.

Commentator and author

Brazile is a weekly contributor and political commentator on CNN's The Situation Room and American Morning and in CNN's Election Coverage. In addition, she is a contributing writer for Ms. Magazine and was a columnist for Roll Call. Brazile is also founder and managing director of Brazile and Associates and a contributor to NPR's Political Corner and ABC News. In 2004, Simon & Schuster published Cooking With Grease, Brazile's memoir of her life and work in politics.

Papers

Brazile donated her papers to the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections in the Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections, located in Hill Memorial Library.

Acting

Brazile is a member of Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and has guest-starred as herself in three episodes of the CBS drama The Good Wife and one episode of the Netflix drama House of Cards.

External links

• Brazile & Associates official site
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Donna Brazile at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Donna Brazile in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Donna Brazile collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Donna Brazile at the Internet Movie Database

Party political offices
Preceded by Tim Kaine	Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee Acting 2011	Succeeded by Debbie Wasserman Schultz