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Restoring New Orleans and the fragile Gulf Coast coastline are priorities of the Obama administration, Kenner-born political strategist Donna Brazile said today, adding that she'll keep pressing President Barack Obama and his staff to ensure they don't forget.
Obama is coming to inspect the damage and recovery, Brazile said at Tulane University, but she doesn't know when yet.
"I know that this is a priority for him and the first lady," she said. "I'm going to keep on pressing. . . . I will fight."
Speaking to a Newcomb College Institute forum, Brazile said she hopes Obama will discuss storm and coastal relief in his first speech to a joint session of Congress. That address is scheduled for Feb. 24, which happens to be Mardi Gras.
Brazile, who drafted a six-page memo of Katrina-related needs at the Obama team's request, said the outlook for help to the areas struck by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike is good because the region has allies in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as in Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Brazile, 49, the new first vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, has worked on presidential campaigns since 1984. Her first brush with politics, she said, came in 1969, when she worked to get a playground in Kenner.
That playground is still there, she said.
In the ensuing four decades, Brazile said, she has worked on campaigns in 48 states.
"Two more, and I'll become Miss USA -- without the bikini," she said.
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