Former DNC Chair Brazile: 'I Didn't Vote for Hillary or Bernie'

Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile's new book "Hacks" claims the party's apparatus tilted the nominating process toward Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders.

But in an interview with KQED on Friday, Brazile says she didn't cast a ballot for either one of them in the June 14 District of Columbia primary where she votes. By that time, Clinton had wrapped up the nomination.

"I didn't want to get involved in the primary," Brazile said on KQED's Forum. "The last time I got involved in a Democratic primary was Al Gore versus Bill Bradley in 2000.

"In 2008 they said, 'Donna, you're black you gotta be for Obama. Donna, you're a woman, you gotta be for Hillary.' And you  know what I told people? 'I'm getting old and grumpy, I might support John McCain, so back off.'"

When pressed, Brazile said she wrote in the name of D.C.'s representative in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, "because I'm an activist Democrat." Asked if it was a protest vote, Brazile said, "Hell yeah, it was a protest. I did not want to get involved."

It wasn't clear exactly what she was protesting.

At the time, Brazile was not yet the DNC chair but still a commentator on CNN (the network would later sever ties with her over allegations from a WikiLeaks email that she tipped off Clinton to topics that might be raised by voters in a town hall meeting aired by CNN.)

The former DNC chair's response was unexpected.

"It's out of the ordinary," said long-time Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. "Not bad out of the ordinary. I would be loath to make a value judgment."

Consultant Ace Smith, who worked for the Clinton campaign in California, was not terribly surprised by Brazile's revelation.

"It’s a free country," Smith said. "She’s raising legitimate questions [about the Democratic party] and people should stop carping about it and do something about it."

Sragow noted Brazile's comfort in "plotting her own course."

"On some level I find that admirable," Sragow said. "But if you march to your own drum too often, you end up on the margins."