Leadership Quote by Donna Brazile

Politics, Brazile reminds you, is less a policy seminar than a branding war with stakes. “Defining who you are” sounds noble, almost therapeutic, but the line’s power is in its blunt admission that campaigns run on identity before they run on ideology. Voters don’t experience a platform as a spreadsheet; they experience a candidate as a story with a moral. Brazile, a veteran of modern party machinery, is naming the central mechanic: the candidate’s “vision” is never delivered in isolation. It only lands in contrast.

The dash does a lot of work. It turns “defining” into a two-part operation: build your narrative, then frame theirs. That second clause is the unvarnished subtext of American campaigning in the TV-and-digital era, where attention is scarce and persuasion often happens through comparison, not exposition. “Opponent’s vision” is also a euphemism; it’s the polite word for the negative definition every campaign relies on, from opposition research to carefully edited attack ads. You don’t just say what you’ll do - you imply what they’d do to you.

Context matters: Brazile comes out of the late-20th/early-21st century Democratic infrastructure, where message discipline, rapid response, and coalition maintenance are survival skills. Her line reads like field wisdom passed down to staffers: if you don’t define yourself, you’ll be defined for you; if you don’t define your opponent, they’ll define themselves. It’s pragmatic, slightly cynical, and accurate - a reminder that “vision” in campaigns is as much a weapon as a plan.