Kirsten Gillibrand’s Al Franken Betrayal May Doom Her 2020 Prospects
“national donors and bundlers — many of them women — said they would never again donate to or fundraise for Gillibrand”
New York Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has already made it clear that she intends to run for president in 2020. In an ultimate twist of irony, her enthusiasm for #MeToo may be her undoing.
She is already having a problem with Democrat donors for supporting Al Franken’s resignation last year.
Natasha Korecki and Laura Nahmias report at Politico:
Franken scandal haunts Gillibrand’s 2020 chances
Just a month after Al Franken formally resigned from the Senate amid sexual misconduct allegations, the former senator met with an intimate group of Bay Area supporters at the home of major Democratic Party financiers Mary and Steve Swig.
As Franken and his wife, Franni Bryson, made the rounds, thanking supporters in the philanthropists’ San Francisco home at the February 2018 event, the conversation broke off into another subject: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The New York Democrat had, in their opinion, pulled the rug out from under Franken, a Minnesota Democrat beloved by the group, forcing him out without any real vetting of the allegations facing him.
“It was said not in front of Al to impress him; it was said privately in a corner. A group of us were standing there talking about it. He was one of our best weapons against this administration, his presence on these committees. [Gillibrand] did the damage that Republicans could not do themselves,” one of the attendees told POLITICO. “There were other people at this event who were saying the same thing. They said, ‘Absolutely, I will never do anything for her.’”
These are the people who could doom Gillibrand in 2020. In the months before the Democratic primary, there will be a mad dash for campaign cash with tons of competition. Gillibrand could be finished before she starts:
Today, nearly a year after Gillibrand led the charge in calling for Franken’s resignation, the anger is fresh on the minds of major donors across the country.
More than a dozen prominent West Coast, New York and national donors and bundlers — many of them women — said they would never again donate to or fundraise for Gillibrand or would do so only if she ended up as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Tiana Lowe of the Washington Examiner does a fantastic job of reminding these folks that Gillibrand is not responsible for Al Franken’s behavior:
Democratic donors plot to punish Kirsten Gillibrand for holding Al Franken accountable for his sins
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has flipped her position on issues before, yet for the one thing she remained admirably principled on — the seriousness of sexual assault — the Democratic donor class reportedly plans on punishing her.
Yes, Gillibrand is going to be punished for the crime of leading the charge to oust sexual predator Al Franken from the Senate…
To her credit, Gillibrand hasn’t backed down. She directly rebuffed George Soros’ blame game in August and shared the Politico report about this donor revolt with the comment, ” Silencing women for the powerful, or for your friends, or for convenience, is neither acceptable, nor just.”
She’s correct. More importantly, Gillibrand didn’t make Franken grope multiple women. She didn’t make the truth come out, and then she certainly didn’t make him lie about it. What she did was stick by her principles and ask that Franken face punishment for his actions. In a just world, Franken’s multiple instances of sexual battery and assault would warrant criminal punishment. But a Senate resignation is more justice than most victims ever receive.
Many of the same donors who blame Gillibrand for Franken’s problems support recent efforts to rehabilitate Franken’s public image. David Freddoso, also of the Washington Examiner, threw cold water on that in an excellent new column this weekend:
Dear hypocrites and enablers: Please stop trying to rehabilitate the predator Al Franken
I had resolved to stay clear of Twitter on Thanksgiving except perhaps to share a few thoughts about food. But last night, I saw a tweet from one of Washington’s longtime liberal think-tankers that was just too much for me to bear:
Take the time to read Al’s beautiful Thanksgiving reflection. His voice is so important. @alfranken https://t.co/SOzzdnuDJT
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) November 22, 2018
Perhaps Ornstein and disgraced former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., are old personal friends, and this is just a case of someone wrongheadedly defending a bad person out of personal loyalty. But there has been a broader effort in recent months to rehabilitate the unapologetic serial groper, who was forced out of office for attacking and harassing so many women that his own partisan colleagues couldn’t avoid throwing him under the bus. This broader effort can’t be considered outside of the fact that Franken was a huge draw for Democratic fundraisers, and his disappearance has been a disappointment for many.
For the sanctimonious attitude he took before his downfall toward issues of workplace harassment of women, Franken is also a classic hypocrite. Those trying to rehabilitate his career — and yes, this is a thing, it’s been going on almost since he resigned — are enablers who deserve to be called out.
Read the whole thing.
It will be great fun to watch this issue come up in the Democratic primary debates. Which candidate will defend Franken to take out Gillibrand? There’s not enough popcorn in the world.
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Comments
Wait….wut!?!….I really can’t keep up….so women are upset at another woman for taking a stand against a guy who treated women like his jokes and his playthings…
But Franklin was a Democrat. So, that makes it okay. A Democrat Male can molest and harass women, just as long as he is a Democrat, and these bimbo women complaining should just SHUT UP.
Now, if he was a Republican? Then these WOMYN must be believed !!!
The situation of the woman in question is irrelevant and nobody really gives a damn about women and their “he touched me, WAAA!” complaints. Quite, woman!!
Women are used for political purposes, by men,…. always have been, always will. Today, though other WOMYN use women for political purposes.
Get used to it, ladies.
It was never about loyalty to other women. Well maybe it is with Gillibrand who I guess swings that way, but not generally. The members of the “women’s movement” have never gotten along, it’s always been an association of shared purpose.
And Franken, as a clever guy on their side, was a standard bearer for that purpose. They paid a big price to get him, stealing an election to get him into the Senate. He was important. She didn’t protect him from the flavor-of-the-year, the metoo movement. She didn’t understand that was only supposed to hit Republicans.
And for that lack of comprehension, or excessive concern about just one issue, she’s not presidential material and people wonder why they didn’t pick another person to insert into Hillary’s seat (which she had likewise been inserted into.)
“ Believe all women“ except when they accuse I’ll Franken. Then they’ve committed an unforgivable crime. Siding with privileged white male Al ‘hands’ Frankenstein over the woman. Tsk tsk.
I think the better summation is to Believe All Women – Excuse All Democrats.
Believe ALL WOMYN when accusing a Republican.
Believe all Democratic MEN when accused by a (bimbo) woman.
Gee, that’s too bad.
It is a sad commentary on the people of New York that this louche overwhelmingly won reelection. Appointed by Patterson, she owes her Senate seat in no small measure to the influence of the Clintons. Yet she backstabbed the Clintons for pure convenience. I don’t like the Clintons, but having been “blessed” by them silence might have been golden. I guess the #metoo hashtag was just to good to pass up for this former Big Tabacco lawyer.
The she moved onto stabbing Al Franken. That created further anger on the Democrat side. I would not rise to defend either Clinton or Franken (who Senate seat was magically gifted to him in a dubious recount against Norm Coleman). But even by Democrat “standards” this woman is as opportunistic as they come.
Then there is the story of how she came to the House. The Democrats bullied a Republican Congressman in Dutchess County into not seekign re-election. Gilbrand was given annoited with the sea. It was a “conservative District for New York. So she billed herself as a Conservative.
If politics is a dirty game, this is a woman who never bathes. Advice to all Democrats or Republicans, never close your eyes around her.
Gillibrand’s sex cult will step in for her.
How I best remember Al Franken,
http://i51.tinypic.com/2druqlx.jpg
“What she did was stick by her principles and….”
The same principles that she said she would serve six years, and then promptly announced she was “considering “a run in 2020? Those principles?
……and,yes, it is clearly a rehabilitation effort for 2020.
The consolation for Gillibrand is that she’s carved out her own niche in the identity politics forum. She may not be elected president because of the other factions she’s pissed off, but OTOH neither will they be able to dislodge her from office.
Look, the Dems are so frantic for power that they crammed Hillary into running last time. It literally does not matter what Gillibrand has done. The Dems will spin it positive if she’s the One True Nominee. It will suddenly turn into “Stood up against powerful interests in her party to promote the rights of the downtrodden women” and Frankey will be told in no uncertain words to sit down and shut up.
And, it is time for a “Woman” President. We need to vote one in so we can get that out of the way….like the one (and only) African American Muslim president……..
Well, when Ivanka Trump runs for the 1st Woman President, (2024), watch how that will be a non-issue and the Communists (Liberals, Democrats) and they will not be nice about that…….
By the way, if we are all “Equal”, then what difference does it make concerning the race and sex-gender of anybody? Really. Are we all not Equal? Wait….maybe…….no…..that can’t be……..
With totalitarian Leftists’ perpetually shifting, contradictory and capricious Party orthodoxies and Codes of Conduct, who knows what a card-carrying Dumb-o-crat is supposed to believe, at any given moment?
The Dumb-o-crats’ ideological “purity” tests are so rigidly-applied, it is no wonder that even Party elders and self-perceived standard-bearers, such as Gillibrand, fall afoul of the proletariat, for an alleged lack of total ideological fidelity.
Who can keep up with the innumerable, intrinsic contradictions that are manifest in Dumb-o-crat orthodoxies?
Predatory, lecherous and abusive men — bad.
Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Keith “Hakim” Ellison — good.
Organized religion — bad.
Islam — good.
“Minorities” — good.
Jews — bad.
Children (in the abstract) — good.
Children (in the womb) — bad.
Illegal aliens and recidivist criminals — good.
Law enforcement and military servicemembers — bad.
Corporations (outside of the tech sector) — bad.
Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, NetFlix and Facebook — good.
Who does Al Franken think he is? Bill Klinton?
I’m an old retired pilot and this woman’s name can be used instead of the word “Windsock”. She is living proof of a human windsock because she goes the way the political wind is blowing that moment. She has no core and no convictions of her own and takes whatever is hot at the moment to be her new cause. Even the walking dead liberals can see through her.
Sociopath:
Has no feelings for others.
Has no feelings except he own grandiose self. Sees all others as things to use, for her advantage, and her gratification.
Has an uncanny, congenital ability to manipulate others and seeks out those that she instinctively “knows” can be manipulated. When that person is exhausted, or has nothing more to “give” her, she abandons them with no sense of right or wrong.
That which benefits HER is right. It is totally natural to her and she operates on this feeling without conscious thought. Thought is only to serve this desire.
She really does not think, as we know it. She uses her brain, thinking, intellect, awareness, to SERVE her emotional ambitions of self importance.
She will go with that System, any System, be it Slavery, Nazi, Christianity, Phallic Worship, Peyote Use, Racism, etc……… which enables her. If millions die, so what. She does not feel anything for them. In a way, others don’t exist.
She has no “morals” and would not be able to understand what they are when we discuss them. To care about others is the absolute sign of weakness and stupidity to one like her.
It’s hard to find a politician that ins’t creepily insincere, but Gillibrand is leading for top honors of slimy, sleezy say anything to get elected and reelected politician. She changes positions so fast I can’t keep up.
In a just world, Franken’s multiple instances of sexual battery and assault would warrant criminal punishment.
In a just world, the D’rat Party would have gone extinct in 1865; therefore, no magical mystery ballot boxes, and Franken would just be some putz who used to be on TV.
Think of how things would be different had there not been that awful pic of Franken on the military aircraft doing one of his deeds to the victim. The stories were awful, but that pic was so damning. Franken very well may be standing tall in the floor of the Senate if not for that pic….
I wonder how many congress critters Gillibrand has serviced.