Former Dem chair discusses Clinton’s loss, Russian hack
Donna Brazile told a sold-out San Francisco crowd Thursday that she knows why Hillary Clinton lost, and it’s all in her new book.
The culprits in the 2016 presidential election, said the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, were insufficient campaign funds, bad tactics, then-FBI director James Comey’s lastminute butting in, Donald Trump’s tweets, the “right-wing ecosystem,” Clinton’s failure to campaign hard enough in a handful of states, millions of dollars worth of free Trump TV time, and a lot of other reasons that had nothing to do with Donna Brazile.
But mostly it was the Russian hack of Democratic Party headquarters. Not by coincidence, the title of her book is “Hacks.”
“They corrupted our data, they got into our voter files, they used active measures to disrupt our campaign and discredit our nominee,” she said. “The Russians are coming back.”
“This book is a warning,” she said. “I don’t want no bears in my house. This is some super-duper hacking.”
Brazile said she sure hoped each and every member of the audience would buy a copy of the book for $28, plus tax.
The political strategist and TV pundit is a lifelong Democratic activist. Before being involved in the Clinton campaign, she was involved in the losing presidential campaigns of Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson and Dick Gephardt.
Seated in a gray easy chair onstage at the Marines Memorial Theater, Brazile was folksy, earthy and chatty as she batted away questions.
Asked by moderator Audrey Cooper, editor in chief of The Chronicle, whether she had regrets about published reports that she had used her position as a TV commentator to pass leaked debate questions to candidate Clinton, Brazile said she had tipped off candidate Bernie Sanders as well, because she “wanted to give Hillary and Bernie a heads up.”
Cooper asked whether she would do it again.
“Hell, yes,” Brazile replied.
In her 238-page book, released this week, Brazile also criticizes a fundraising agreement that she said gave the Clinton campaign effective control of the party before Clinton had won its nomination.
But Thursday, most of her scorn was directed at the man who beat Clinton, whom she referred to as “DT.”
Trump, she said, is “divisive, xenophobic and racist (and) unable to bring the country together.” She said she agreed with Clinton that Trump is “unfit.” But, she added, “let’s give him some credit, he cracked the blue wall.”
Commonweath Club members in the audience said they liked the speech, but most left without buying the book, despite Brazile’s frequent waving of it from the stage. (Brazile, according to the online bookseller Amazon, is currently the 41st most popular author in the world, right between J.R.R. Tolkien and the author of the Captain Underpants series.)
“I loved her exuberance and her passion,” said audience member Bill Maxey of San Francisco. “But we got a ticket early, and when you sign up early enough, they don’t make you buy the book with your ticket.”