Donna Brazile rules!

[AdamSmith]

She the Man.

Hacks review: Donna Brazile lifts lid on Hillary and the Democrats' disaster

The former DNC chair’s memoir of election defeat has it all: Russian hackers, campaign drama and a reigniting of bitter internal feuds

Twice in the past five presidential elections, the Democrats won the popular vote only to meet defeat in the electoral college. In 2000, a mere 537-vote deficit in Florida and the US supreme court stood between Al Gore and the White House. Sixteen years later, Hillary Clinton garnered a 2.86 million vote plurality, only to see her ambitions dashed in the Rust Belt.

Both times, Donna Brazile was there, first as Gore’s campaign manager, then in 2016 as the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Brazile most certainly has a story to tell. In Hacks, her new book, she points fingers, names names and self-absolves. Replete with f-bombs, male anatomical references and tales of alcohol consumption, the book is an easy and vivid read, everything one expects in a first-person campaign narrative – except for its detailed discussion of Russia’s hacks, WikiLeaks, and threats to Brazile herself. On that score, the book is down-right alarming.

Three titanic egos – Barack, Hillary, and Debbie – had stripped the party to a shell for their own purposes

Donna Brazile

From the get-go, Brazile bristles with contempt for Robby Mook, the data-driven Clinton campaign manager, and Brandon Davis, Mook’s emissary to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She is respectfully disapproving of Clinton’s hauteur and tin ear, which she captures with a deft touch, and bathes Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Brazile’s predecessor at the debt-ridden DNC, with acid-laced kindness.

Brazile also takes the Obamas to task for standing idly as the Democratic party imploded on their watch. As Brazile tells it, “three titanic egos – Barack, Hillary, and Debbie – had stripped the party to a shell for their own purposes.”

Brazile pummels Mook. Mincing no words, she declares: “I want to talk about the arrogance and isolation of the Clinton campaign and the cult of Robby Mook, who felt fresh but turned up stale, in a campaign haunted by ghosts and lacking in enthusiasm, focus, and heart.”

In Brazile’s view, campaigns are supposed to be about competence in execution, passion and fun. On this score, Mook was 0-for-3. Worse, Mook and his men sought to put the kibosh on Brazile’s efforts to bolster the DNC and the Democrats, which tack was driven in large measure by sexism but not racism, according to the African-American Brazile.

Over a conference call with the Clinton campaign’s high command, Brazile recalls, genital size became the measure of all things. She announced: “This feels like power and control. Gentlemen, let’s just put our dicks on the table and see who’s got the bigger one, because I know that mine is bigger than all of yours.”

Interestingly, Huma Abedin, Clinton’s supposed alter-ego, is never present during these dust-ups, giving the impression that she was simply Clinton’s kid-sister and disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner’s ex-wife. Abedin as strategic player? Not so much.

After Clinton’s “deplorables” speech at Cipriani Wall Street and her collapse at the 9/11 ceremony in lower Manhattan, Brazile writes that she was forced to take stock of Clinton’s candidacy and assess the possibility of replacing the ticket, a power actually possessed by the DNC. In Brazile’s view, a combination of vice-president Joe Biden and Senator Cory Booker would have been a dream team, particularly in the face of Donald Trump’s appeal to white working-class voters and the Democrats’ dependence on minority turn-out. Brazile also writes that Clinton’s failure to immediately come clean about her bout with pneumonia “fed the impression that Hillary was lying to us”.

As to be expected, Brazile goes easy on Brazile. She makes no mention of the DNC spending scarce funds in get-out-the-vote efforts that targeted Chicago (in reliably blue Illinois) and New Orleans (in predictably red Louisiana). She also pushes back hard against accusations that she leaked primary debate questions to the Clinton campaign, even as she was a CNN commentator.

Still, Brazile acknowledges that as the result of binding agreements hammered out by Wasserman Schultz, the DNC had become a Clinton campaign subsidiary. Yes, the Bernie Bros really had reason to be angry. The fix was in.

Brazile also deals with race, gender, and identity politics. Hacks recounts how turnout among black women dropped from Obama’s presidential bids to Clinton’s run, and discusses incarceration as an issue of particular concern to African American voters. At the same time, Brazile, an adjunct assistant professor, writes of how her students disapproved of identity politics.

Sounding awfully like Columbia’s Mark Lilla, Brazile comments that her students thought Clinton spent too much time “trying to appeal to people based on their race, or their gender, or their sexual orientation” and not enough time on the issues.

In reality, even with Donald Trump, this is a problem the Democrats must address. Running up the score in Blue America, without an eye toward America’s interior, is a surefire way of making 2020 a rerun of 2000 and 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/05/hacks-review-donna-brazile-hillary-clinton-democrats-donald-trump

[RA1]

trying to appeal to people based on their race, or their gender, or their sexual orientation” and not enough time on the issues.

What other issues are there? 

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

4 hours ago, RA1 said:

What other issues are there?

[RockHardNYC]

I've always enjoyed and respected Donna Brazile, but I'm not sure what to say about her tell-all book. A lot of people don't enjoy gossip-fests. The timing for Democrat bashing is not in her favor. It's a risky venture, for sure. She's gambling with a few burned bridges. Some powerful folks may drop her and leave her forever.

I'm sure Donna has plenty to vent about. Swimming with sharks is no fun. She defends her effort by saying repeatedly, "Everybody else gets to tell their story, why can't I?" And that's a fair question. But is her telling her story a smart business decision?

She lost her CNN gig when it was discovered she shared debate questions with Hillary. She claims she shared debate questions with Republicans, too. She's an equal opportunity offender. She said she wanted folks to be prepared for specific topics like "Black Lives Matter," topics that were important to her and "to the country." After that, she became absent on news programs. In essence, she lost her job.

She complains about not getting paid for all the work she's done for the DNC, being on the road 24/7. She sounds like she's broke and determined to inflict comeuppance. The tell-all book may be the only way to pay the bills at this point. It's never good to be in a desperate financial state, faced with making crucial decisions.

Her tell-all book is really quite simple:

1. The DNC was in serious debt.
2. Obama is a HUGELY popular president who dislikes politics.
3. Debbie Wasserman Shultz overspent on her hairdresser and clothing, and was an over-worked incompetent. I'm sure Obama and Hillary knew this.
4. Hillary was forced to re-build the coffers at the DNC, while she was battling Trump. A serious nuisance.
5. Bernie was asked to do the same, but felt no allegiance to the DNC. He's not a Democrat.
6. A one-page memorandum suggested that, because Hillary's money came to the rescue, DNC expenditures needed to be approved by Hillary's campaign. The same agreement was offered to Bernie's campaign as a joint oversight, but Bernie didn't give any money.
7. Donna was upset that, as temporary DNC chief, her hands, power, and agenda were completely controlled by Hillary's campaign. She did like being patronized by smarty pants, cutie-white-boy, Robby Mook.

8. Hillary's campaign, Obama, and scores of others were overly confident that Hillary had this thing in the bag.

The End.

Everybody needs to vent, especially if they work with the assholes who work in politics. IMO, it's rarely a good idea to burn bridges, unless you know you can earn a decent living doing something else.

I will be watching to see what Donna's future holds.

 

[RockHardNYC]

4 hours ago, RockHardNYC said:

7. Donna was upset that, as temporary DNC chief, her hands, power, and agenda were completely controlled by Hillary's campaign. She did like being patronized by smarty pants, cutie-white-boy, Robby Mook.

This was supposed to read as:

She did NOT like being patronized by smarty pants, cutie-white-boy, Robby Mook. I guess my edit time maxed out.

[AdamSmith]

On second and third thought, I tend to agree with @RockHard. Brazile took the fairly obvious, and went overboard with it.

For a range of possible motives, some good, but others not so good at all.

[TotallyOz]

I know people loved Bernie but he was not and never will be a Democrat.  Hillary is and will always be loyal to the party.  You can say this is good or bad. But, I respect Hillary for bailing out the party and if that gave her a bit more control it seems fair to me.  If Sanders was offered the same deal, why not take it?  If not taking it, why be upset someone did?

I guess I have always been a Clinton supporter. However, she made some foolish mistakes in this campaign and did should have chosen her running matter better, planner her rallies better and played more to her base.

[tassojunior]

Being a "Democrat" isn't what it used to be. Today it means being a Rockefeller Nixon Republican like the Clintons (and that's generous). 

I've known Donna for a long time and what she did at CNN passing Hillary questions in the debate against Bernie was despicable. She shouldn't have been rewarded as DNC chair, even if she were better than Debbie Dim-Wit. Ignoring Michigan and Iowa was stupid. Now she's broke and writing a book she needs publicity for. Common.