Addressing a crowd of 200 people, Donna Brazile spoke about politics and citizen involvement at Columbia College Chicago's Conversation in the Arts lecture series Oct. 25.
Brazile is a veteran democratic strategist and commentator, author and syndicated columnist as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and former chair of Vice-President Al Gore's presidential campaign (the first African-American woman to hold that post).
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell introduced Brazile by highlighting her career and accomplishments, including when a 9-year-old Brazile successfully got a playground installed in her New Orleans neighborhood after working to elect a city council candidate who promised to build that playground.
Brazile started by talking about her recent appearance on an episode of the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, getting laughs when she said she envisioned that the character of Eli Gold, played by Alan Cumming, was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
Turning to the political arena, Brazile thanked the college and President Dr. Warrick L. Carter for the invitation to speak. "Politicians are not performers in the sense of fine arts but some of us dance around the truth," said Brazile, adding "Tonight I am going to try and get straight to the point and I've omitted all the partisan references in my speech so thank you and good night," which made the crowd laugh again. Then Brazile talked about how in Washington, D.C., they use traffic circles to give people the allusion that things are moving forward in politics when the opposite is true.
Brazile then addressed people's dissatisfaction with politicians and people on Wall Street. Partisanship, Brazile said, has never been greater, mentioning the Republican Party's goal of making President Obama's tenure last one term. Brazile called on the audience to consider running for political office to help affect change.
Closing out the evening, Brazile took questions from the audience. One man asked about Obama and his rocky relationship with the progressive base. Brazile answered that people need to stop complaining and get active, adding that the president should do as much as he can as fast as he can as well as communicate his accomplishments to people more effectively. Brazile said "change doesn't start at the top it always starts at the bottom ... and you have to fight for change by getting in the arena."
President Obama, Brazile told the audience, has accomplished 60 percent of what he laid out in the campaign. Of the 2012 campaign and beyond, Brazile said the Obama administration needs to add more people to the mix so new voices can be heard, especially the progressive base and minority groups.
For more information about the Conversation in the Arts lecture series at the college visit www.colum.edu/conversations. To find out more about Brazile visit www.donnabrazile.com .
