WASHINGTON — Joe Biden would have been the Democratic nominee for president last year instead of Hillary Clinton if Donna Brazile followed her instincts.
Brazile, the former interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, says in an upcoming memoir that she seriously considered using her powers as the head of the party to remove Clinton from atop the 2016 presidential ticket, according to The Washington Post.
The DNC’s charter allows the party’s chair to oversee the process of filling a vacancy if a nominee becomes disabled.
When Clinton fainted in New York City while suffering a bout of pneumonia, Brazile writes that she considered replacing her and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, with Biden and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, reports The Post, which received an advanced copy of the book.
Brazile says she thought a Biden-Booker ticket stood the best chance of winning over working-class voters and defeating Republican Donald Trump.
In the end, though, Brazile couldn’t bring herself to give Clinton the boot, even though she thought Clinton was a sincere but flawed candidate whose campaign reeked with “the odor of failure.”
“I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her,” Brazile wrote. “I could not do this to them.”
Brazile’s memoir, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, will be published Tuesday by Hachette Books.