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What If You Launch a Presidential Campaign and No One Shows Up? - Greenfield
FrontPage Magazine ^ | April 2. 2019 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 04/02/2019 12:54:31 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell

What If You Launch a Presidential Campaign and No One Shows Up?

Welcome to the worst 2020 kickoff rally in America.

April 2, 2019

Daniel Greenfield

75 FrontPage Comments

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was going to launch her kickoff rally right in front of President Trump’s front door. “No other candidate has done something like this,” she bragged. “We’re rallying at Trump’s doorstep to send a message loud and clear: We’re together, we’re brave."

By the time she showed up in front of “Trump’s doorstep” at the Trump International Hotel off Manhattan’s Central Park, the President of the United States was traveling back from Florida to Washington D.C. He was nowhere near the hotel where Gillibrand had decided to “confront” him.

There was nothing “brave” about venturing into the Upper West Side, where the locals would rather commit ritual suicide with a spork or shop at Walmart, before voting for Trump. Starting your rally in a place where Hillary Clinton won 80% of the vote isn’t brave. It’s cowardly. Gillibrand would have shown more courage by going back to her old district where Hillary only won 54% of the vote.

But instead her campaign threw up a giant American flag and then brought out two illegal aliens.

“Our next president will lead with bravery. Our next president with be Kirsten Gillibrand," declared Monica Sibri, an illegal alien who won't be able to vote for Gillibrand.

It was a balmy spring day in the Big Apple with sunshine and a high of 60. The NYPD, out in force, had roped off blocks to accommodate the crowds of the brave expected to turn out on Trump’s doorstep.

The actual audience barely filled half a block according to photojournalist Pamela Hall. The Washington Times estimated that the turnout amounted to 1,000 people. The New York Times offered no estimates, but conceded that the crowd was “small”. It was so small that most of the media coverage consisted of close-up photos to avoid exposing just how few people had bravely showed up to the 2020 kickoff rally.

You can find more people than that on a Sunday in Manhattan waiting at a trendy coffee place.

Out of desperation, the New York Times led its coverage with a painfully close-up shot of a secret service man looking up at Gillibrand’s swollen ankles with a yellow moving truck in the background.

Pamela Hall’s photos showed block after block of empty gray pens waiting in splendid loneliness.

This wasn’t a small town in Iowa or New Hampshire where failing presidential candidates can find themselves speaking to two dozen people. It was Manhattan on Sunday afternoon. A few hundred feet away, joggers were running up and down, tourists were gawking at the sights, including Trump’s hotel, families were strolling through Central Park on one of the first warm days of spring after a cold winter.

None of them wanted to come and hear the senator from New York speak in her own state.

“When we tell Trump enough is enough, I want him to hear your voice along with mine,” Gillibrand had pleaded.

Not only wasn’t Trump there. No one else was there either.

Either the millennial yuppie hipsters clotting the Upper West Side were scared of Trump or they weren’t very interested in Gillibrand. Since she occasionally polls at zero, the possibility is real.

The kickoff rally reminded everyone of why she polls at zero.

Despite her recent sexual harassment scandal, the campaign tried to pivot back to the #MeToo movement. Out came Andrea Pino, the star of the Weinstein Company’s propaganda doc, The Hunting Ground. Pino insisted that, “Kirsten Gillibrand has fought for women" and for rape victims.

Meanwhile, Senator Gillibrand had just been forced to fire her close personal friend, driver and adviser, Abbas Malik, after multiple sexual harassment incidents in her office, which it covered up.

Getting back on her #MeToo high horse was a bad idea. But so was resurrecting The Hunting Ground.

The Hunting Ground had been heavily promoted by Harvey Weinstein, a serial rapist, and its claims have been widely discredited. Appropriately enough, Gillibrand had appeared in The Hunting Ground.

Harvey exploited the pre-#MeToo movement for virtue signaling while raping women, why shouldn’t Senator Gillibrand be able to cover her office’s complicity in sexual harassment the same way?

Pino preached that Gillibrand is, "for every American that dares to imagine an America that serves all of us — not just the white, rich and the powerful.” Rich, white and powerful would describe Gillibrand.

After the illegal aliens and the stars of a Harvey Weinstein campus rape documentary, the Gillibrand campaign brought out the star power. Connie Britton, an actress you may not remember from Spin City, assured the crowd that Gillibrand would help them the way she had helped her adopt an African baby.

The caption identified her as “Actress and Activist”.

Britton was always a bad actress, but she had never been worse than when she claimed that Gillibrand can harness "the power of the storm" and that the bravery of a politician who has flip-flopped on every major issue in her career "comes from her unwavering core of integrity".

The writing on Spin City was never this bad.

Then, while the music played, "Hair toss, Check my nails, Baby how you feelin'?, Feeling good as hell", the prom queen with no one at her prom, sauntered up to the stage.

The song cut off right before, “If he don't love you anymore.”

Some candidates struggle to find a song that sums up their campaign. Kirsten’s was the radio edit version of a song that was popular three years ago with all the obscenities taken out. Senator Gillibrand might not have gotten anything else right. But that does sum up her campaign.

Senator Gillibrand thanked Connie Britton for being a friend and an incredible actress, and in her best prom queen voice, thanked “everyone who has gathered here today.”

Everyone being the population of a Manhattan coffee shop.

While flippantly pushing back strands of her coifed hair, Senator Gillibrand informed the crowd that the Constitution was always meant to “grow” and “adapt” in the tone of a teenage girl giving a class report.

“Even the Star-Spangled Banner ends in a question,” she insisted.

It actually ends with an assertion. Senator Gillibrand is running for the highest office in the land while being unfamiliar with the full version of the country’s national anthem.  

What do you do when you launch a presidential campaign and there are more reporters, interns, and activists than actual voters? Since it’s the 2020 race, you scream even more loudly against Trump.

“He puts his name in bold on every building," Gillibrand babbled, looking back and forth at her two teleprompters. "He does all of this because he wants you to believe he is strong. He is not. Our president is a coward."

Gillibrand wouldn’t be the first member of Congress desperately taunting Trump in the hopes that he would notice her and give her some credibility. But sadly, Trump didn’t so much as diss her on Twitter.

The rant escalated. The hotel was a “a shrine to greed, division, and vanity”. Unable to taunt Trump, the senator from New York was reduced to taunting an inanimate object. She told the small gathering that, “the greater strength by far, is ours” even though the evidence made it all too clear that she was wrong.

Gillibrand rambled on about the Mueller report, threw in Nixon and JFK references for the kids, and proposed socialized medicine, universal pre-K, and the Green New Deal. “We should aspire to net zero carbon emissions in the next ten years,” she proposed.

If she wants net carbon emissions in the next ten years, she can start by turning off the power to New York City. The mass deaths would be the only realistic way to get to carbon neutrality in a decade.

But, like most politicians, Senator Gillibrand doesn’t understand what she’s proposing and doesn’t care.

The theme of her rally and campaign was “brave”. And she wants to be brave by proposing the same stuff that everyone else in the 2020 field is, while shouting that Trump, who is far away, is a coward.

And she was doing it to an audience that hadn’t even bothered to show up.

The New York Times interviewed one of her former interns who dissed her rally and turnout. Not only couldn’t Gillibrand get her supporters to turn out, even her interns were looking down at her.

But not all the attendees at the Gillibrand rally lacked passion.

A number of Jewish protesters had shown up, furious at her appearance at the anti-Semitic Women’s March, her refusal to oppose BDS, and her other betrayals of the Jewish community.

A woman in a MAGA hat waved an “Elect Trump” banner. Other signs read, "Kirsten the Commie", "Trump 2020", "Pro-BDS Anti-Semite Gillibrand", and "Far Left Hates America".

“Why don’t you support Trump,” the woman holding up the “Trump 2020” banner asked a Jewish liberal. “He’s done a lot for this country. And he loves Israel and the Jewish people.”

“She’s in favor of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions of Israel, that makes her an anti-Semite,” a protester told a reporter.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand had not only failed to get a crowd to come out to her kickoff rally, but she had managed to attract Jewish protesters in the most Jewish city in America.

This wasn’t a kickoff rally. It was a humiliating disaster.

“Will we be brave?” Gillibrand asked the crowd. “You answered that question just by being here.”

Showing up to a rally on a Sunday afternoon to cheer her on was the epitome of bravery.

"Years from now we will look back at this moment," Gillibrand emoted, in the voice of the prom queen telling all the less popular kids how much their praise means to her.

Then, as her husband and children got up on stage, she awkwardly gyrated and left to the sounds of, "Cause he don't love you anymore/So walk yourself right out the door."

Once again, she had perfectly summed up her campaign with a song.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: 2020demprimary; bloggers; demprimary2020; gillibrand; gillibrand2020; greenfield; womanpresident; yawn
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Lou

1 posted on 04/02/2019 12:54:31 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell
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To: daisy mae for the usa; AdvisorB; wizardoz; free-in-nyc; Vendome; Georgia Girl 2; blaveda; ...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

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Louis Foxwell

2 posted on 04/02/2019 12:55:33 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (The denial of the authority of God is the central plank of the Progressive movement.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

“declared Monica Sibri, an illegal alien who won’t be able to vote for Gillibrand.”

Wanna bet?

L


3 posted on 04/02/2019 12:58:01 PM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending it is.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

... declared Monica Sibri, an illegal alien who won’t be able to vote for Gillibrand.

wanna bet?


4 posted on 04/02/2019 1:03:07 PM PDT by samtheman (To steal an election, who do you collude with? Russians in Russia or Mexicans in California?)
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To: Louis Foxwell

This crowd is small than the number of Jussie assailants.


5 posted on 04/02/2019 1:05:17 PM PDT by samtheman (To steal an election, who do you collude with? Russians in Russia or Mexicans in California?)
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To: Lurker

You beat me by 5 minutes but I really didn’t see your post. Really. :)


6 posted on 04/02/2019 1:11:32 PM PDT by samtheman (To steal an election, who do you collude with? Russians in Russia or Mexicans in California?)
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To: Louis Foxwell; All
Wonderful piece of hilariously good writing from the article:

There was nothing “brave” about venturing into the Upper West Side, where the locals would rather commit ritual suicide with a spork or shop at Walmart, before voting for Trump.

7 posted on 04/02/2019 1:11:37 PM PDT by libstripper
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To: All
“Our next president will lead with bravery. Our next president with be Kirsten Gillibrand," declared Monica Sibri, an illegal alien who won't be able to legally vote for Gillibrand.

Fixed it...

8 posted on 04/02/2019 1:11:45 PM PDT by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
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To: Louis Foxwell

Interesting article.


9 posted on 04/02/2019 1:15:05 PM PDT by Jane Austen (Neo-cons are liberal Democrats who love illegal aliens and war.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

She strikes me as having the least integrity of the bunch, which says quite a bit


10 posted on 04/02/2019 1:32:48 PM PDT by j.havenfarm ( 2,000 posts as of 1/16/19. A FReeper since 2000; never shutting up!)
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To: Louis Foxwell

Tough to beat Amy Klobushar launching her campaign with a call for ending global warming during a snowstorm


11 posted on 04/02/2019 1:39:51 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher)
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To: j.havenfarm

Actually, We, the public and the Media should treat all the Democrats the same way. Fact is none of them and I mean none of them have had a rally of supporters that amounted to anything.

Now when one of them can put together 32,000 supporters as POTUS, Donald J. Trump just did in Grand Rapids Michigan, recently,...let us know. Otherwise just tell us peons *& deplorables the paltry numbers the Democrat candidates produce. LMAO!!!


12 posted on 04/02/2019 1:41:21 PM PDT by JLAGRAYFOX (Defeat both the Republican (e) & Democrat (e) political parties....Forever!!!)
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To: Louis Foxwell
"Years from now we will look back at this moment," Gillibrand emoted, in the voice of the prom queen telling all the less popular kids how much their praise means to her.

silly Gilly Kristen Gillibrand is known in Upstate New York as a true Blond with nothing between the ears. If you follow her history, she ran in the district where her grndma or aunt lived in and around Albany where the relative was known for being the powerful mayor Erastus Corning's lover. This "relationship" launched gilly's career, odd for a #metoo gal isn't it.

13 posted on 04/02/2019 1:48:48 PM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Louis Foxwell

won’t be able to vote for Gillibrand.

I’m surprised the adverb “legally” was not inserted.


14 posted on 04/02/2019 2:23:31 PM PDT by spintreebob
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To: Louis Foxwell
"You can find more people than that on a Sunday in Manhattan waiting at a trendy coffee place waiting in line at Chick-fil-A.

I think the NYC Chick fil A does more business in a lunch shift than this "rally".


15 posted on 04/02/2019 2:51:17 PM PDT by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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To: All
Gillibrand was outraged that Blassy Ford's story was questioned.

Senate harridans screamed their disgust. Hirono Ordered men to shut up
and believe women who have been sexually abused.

FRONTPAGE.COM----"When I had the courage to speak up about my harasser, I was belittled by her office and treated like an inconvenience,” the woman said of Gillibrand in an interview. “She kept a harasser on her staff until it proved politically untenable for her to do so.” Another women staffer said Gillibrand's employee, Malik, a Muslim, often called her fat and unattractive to her face and made light of sexual abuse.

She recalled one instance in which Muslim Malik remarked that a particular woman they were talking about “couldn’t get laid unless she was raped.” The person did not report that behavior at the time but now says she wishes she had.

Two more staffers who worked for Gillibrand said the woman’s claims of Malik’s inappropriate workplace behavior matched their own experiences. They said Malik regularly made misogynistic jokes, frequently appraised what they wore, disparaged the looks of other female staffers and rated the attractiveness of women who came in for interviews.

Gillibrand’s office acknowledged it found evidence that Malik had made unspecified inappropriate comments and revoked his expected promotion, which would have come with a raise. It also moved his desk and gave him a final warning.

This was not the first time the senator’s top aides dealt with an allegation of bad behavior by a violence-prone Malik: According to a firsthand witness of an incident in 2015, Malik confronted a fellow aide in the office. He got in the man’s face, pushed his desk and threatened to “f***ing” hurt him, the witness said, describing the confrontation as “violent.”

16 posted on 04/02/2019 2:52:03 PM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use. testimony nder)
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To: All

Gillibrand wanted to destroy USSC Kavanaugh’s career but ignored sexual misconduct in her office
Fox News ^ | March 13 2019 | Marc Thiessen
FR Posted on 3/14/2019, 3:15:07 AM by knighthawk

In April 2018, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urged Senate leaders to pass her bipartisan Congressional Harassment Reform Act. “Congress has a sexual harassment problem — and isn’t taking it seriously,” Gillibrand wrote in Fortune magazine. “If we can’t clean up our own act, how can anyone expect Congress to do the right thing for victims and survivors in the rest of the country? Congress has to do better. I believe that elected officials should be held to the highest ethical standard — not the lowest.”

Just a few months later, when a woman in her own office reported that a married male staffer was making repeated, unwanted and increasingly aggressive sexual advances toward her, Gillibrand did not do the right thing and fire him.

Politico reported that “less than three weeks after reporting the alleged harassment and subsequently claiming that the man retaliated against her for doing so, the woman told chief of staff Jess Fassler that she was resigning because of the office’s handling of the matter.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


17 posted on 04/02/2019 2:54:29 PM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use. testimony nder)
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To: outofsalt

But, of course, not on Sundays. Mea culpa.
(That’s how we used to say,, “my bad” for you folks in Rio Linda, as el-Rushbo might say...)


18 posted on 04/02/2019 2:56:40 PM PDT by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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To: Louis Foxwell


Good grief...age that face a few years and you have hillary! ((((((SHUDDER))))))
19 posted on 04/02/2019 3:00:46 PM PDT by left that other site (For America to have CONFIDENCE in our future, we must have PRIDE in our HISTORY... DJT)
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To: j.havenfarm
She strikes me as having the least integrity of the bunch, which says quite a bit

Have you forgotten Kumalla?
20 posted on 04/02/2019 3:13:52 PM PDT by Old Yeller (Auto-correct has become my worst enema.)
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