Democratic party official thought of fielding Biden
WASHINGTON Donna Brazile, the former chief of the Democratic National Committee, had considered replacing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with vice-president Joe Biden due to concerns about her health after she collapsed at a 9/11 memorial service.
In her upcoming book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Breakins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, Brazile said she considered a dozen combinations before settling on Biden, with African American senator Cory Booker as his running mate.
She also believed Biden and Booker would better connect with working class voters, a constituency not sold on Clinton, according to a Washington Post report.
But she didn’t go through with it. “I thought of Hillary and all the women in the country who were so proud and excited about her. I could not do this to them,” she writes in the book.
In a sequence of events captured on video, Clinton had collapsed as she was leaving the memorial service. After being taken to daughter Chelsea Clinton’s apartment, she emerged to pose for a picture with a girl in a weak attempt to allay fears about her health. Clinton said she was feeling great.
Not many were convinced, especially not Brazile. She had seen signs before. On September 9, Brazile saw Clinton looking “wobbly on her feet” backstage at a Manhattan gala and she seemed to have a “rattled cough”. She urged Clinton to consult an acupuncturist.
“Again and again, I thought about Joe Biden,” Brazile writes.
“No matter what my doubts and fears were about the election and Hillary as a candidate, I could not make good on that threat to replace her.”