Donna Brazile up Thursday night at UTA speaker series

Growing up in poor in a Louisiana neighborhood desperate for a playground, Donna Brazile got her first taste of politics. She liked it.

The spark occurred when a city council candidate came calling with a pledge to build a playground. Brazile jumped into his campaign and handed out leaflets. The candidate won and kept his promise.

“It wasn’t the end of the journey. It really was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to political change and civic engagement,” said Brazile, now an author, Democratic political strategist and media commentator. “I knew at an early age that I could transform my community and transform my neighborhood, and it transformed my life. It was really wonderful.”

Urging young people to get politically active is the theme of Brazile’s lecture Thursday as part of the 2015-16 Maverick Speakers Series at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Brazile, whose lecture topic is “Politics and Beyond,” wants the next generation to learn and use political activism to effect change.

“I want them to think about what kind of country they want to build,” said Brazile, 56. “How do we deal with homelessness, how do we deal with crime, how do we deal with chronic unemployment. I’m going to try to inspire them to take those steps, the same steps I took when I was 10 years old.”

Brazile, born the third of nine children and raised in Kenner, La., just outside her New Orleans birthplace, went on to serve as Al Gore’s 2000 campaign manager, the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign. She also was a force behind the movement to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday.

She now serves as the Democratic National Committee’s vice chairwoman of voter registration and participation, and she’s a regular pundit on ABC and CNN news programs.

Brazile published her only book in 2004 — Cooking With Grease, a memoir of her life as a political organizer.

Twelve years later, she’s working on a second book, focusing on the past 10 years of her life and politics — the high point being the election of the first African-American president. She pointed out that in the prologue of her previous book, she predicted as much, writing, “The possibility exists for us to elect the first minority or first woman president.”

Brazile weighed in on the state of national elections and her guest-starring TV roles:

What stands out most to you in the nomination campaigns?

I think this new rule book that Donald Trump is writing — there’s no question that what he has tapped into and what he is doing is unbelievable. But his message will not be as appealing to the [general population]. He will have to either modify it or find ways to communicate with a much larger and diverse electorate.

How has the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and the resulting super PACs affected the election campaigns?

It’s the dark money, the hidden ways that people contribute to the political landscape. We have a whole lot of schools and roads and bridges that could be rebuilt, but instead we’re using valuable time and resources to attack one another and tear down vital American institutions, such as Congress. It’s corroding political discourse. ... I wouldn’t be surprised if we broke the $10 billion mark as to what it will take to elect candidates this year. [The last presidential election year cost about $6 billion, she said.]

Are the people being unduly influenced by all the extra campaign advertising?

The American people are smart. They know exactly what they want, and when they make a mistake, they try to correct it.

You’ve also stepped out of the serious business of politics and made some appearances on TV dramas as yourself.

I’ve done it three times with The Good Wife, House of Cards twice, and just recently I did Being Mary Jane on BET. The only problem is resisting the urge to tell the director, “That’s not what Donna would say.” I like to tell my friends that after all these years of politics, I’m more suited for the Game of Thrones.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Donna Brazile up Thursday night at UTA speaker series."