Gillibrand connects feminist, anti-corruption messages in intimate setting

WALPOLE, N.H. — At an upscale restaurant in the small town of Walpole, New Hampshire across the Connecticut River from Vermont, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand spoke to a cafe room of 30-50 voters on Friday, an intimate setting that worked perfectly for her direct approach and easy sense of humor. 

Gillibrand, a big-state senator who has struggled to break out of the pack in the race for the Democratic nomination, returned again and again to two themes in her speech: empowering women and fighting corruption. She followed up through an email from her New Hampshire spokeswoman on Monday that the two issues were connected for her.

"To tackle any of the major issues facing American families today, you first need to take on the greed and corruption in Washington," Gillibrand said. "If we want to ensure that we have an economy that values women, that health care is a right and not a privilege and that women have full access to the reproductive care they deserve, we must first take on these special interests standing in our way."

The two intertwined messages, along with her quick-witted performance in a fast-paced forty-minute barnstorming session, won the Dartmouth College graduate a second look from voters in attendance. 

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand briefly chatted with voters in the store room of the chocolate confectionery in Walpole, New Hampshire before beginning her stump speech and question-and-answer session.

Margi Anderson, a retired woman from West Chesterfield, New Hampshire, said that Gillibrand's "performance in the debates was a little bit jarring" and blamed "the nature of the debates," but described her as "much more appealing" in person. Anderson and her husband, Dave Anderson, were previously leaning towards South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, but after hearing the New York Senator, she said "now we need to think about somebody else."

Deyna Robuck, 33, of Brattleboro, Vermont, had "seen little tidbits of her on the news" and praised Gillibrand for doing a Fox News Channel town hall, but after the stump speech, she nodded that she would have to "look into her more and do a lot of research." She appreciated that Gillibrand's New Hampshire campaign staff was almost entirely comprised of women.

While one of its most obvious manifestations was in her staff, the central place of feminism to Gillibrand was also immediately apparent in her speech. Gillibrand began by explaining that "I was interested in politics because my grandmother loved politics" and describing how her grandmother, a secretary for the New York state legislature, rose to become one of the most powerful figures in Albany politics. 

"She recognized, 75 years ago, that all the legislators were men and all the support staff were women but she wanted to have a say," she said. "And she figured out the best way to have a say was to organize the women and get them involved in politics. So she asked them to learn how to stuff envelopes, go to doors, make phone calls."

Although Gillibrand portrayed her grandmother's network as just a community-minded group of private citizens, she briefly alluded to the key role it played in the old-school Democratic machine of party boss Daniel O'Connell and Mayor Erastus Corning, who governed the capital city from 1942 to 1983. "You couldn't get elected in Albany without the blessing of my grandmother and her lady friends," she said.

In a moment that showcased her fine-tuned comedic timing, she described going to campaign headquarters as a young girl and watching her grandmother and the other volunteers. "I'm watching them and I'm fixated by their arms," she said. "I'm just watching them jiggle back and forth. Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle. And in my brain, I'm thinking, 'I want to be just like them some day!' Sure enough, we all jiggle." 

One generation later, Gillibrand shared that her mother, like Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the movie On the Basis of Sex, was one of three women in her law school class. For good measure, Gillibrand added that her mother was also a black belt in karate and both cooked — and shot — the Thanksgiving turkey. "I grew up with a long line of strong women, who believed in themselves and believed their voices mattered and weren't afraid of anything," she said. "As a result, I'm not afraid of anything."

With the example of strong women in her life as role models, Gillibrand was well-prepared when she encountered not-so-subtle forms of sexism on the campaign trail during her first run for Congress. She said her opponent, former New York Congressman John Sweeney, badly underestimated her.

"The one mistake that my opponent made, which President Trump will make as well, is he never, never took me seriously," she said. "In fact, he demeaned me, he dismissed me, he name-called. He was just mean. He said things like, 'She's just another pretty face.' I, of course, said 'Thank you!'"

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand returned to themes of empowering women and fighting corruption throughout her stump speech and question-and-answer session.

The race against Sweeney and her early years in the House of Representatives as a red-district Democrat gave Gillibrand the chance to shift her tone from jovial to serious and segue into her anti-corruption work. "I take on the fights that no one else will," she said. She touted that she exposed sexual violence in the military and that she voted against the bank bailout twice, even as a freshman member of Congress from New York.

Rather than ingratiate herself to party leaders or well-moneyed lobbyists, Gillibrand claimed that she "stood up to Congress more than anyone else." During her first term, she said she separated herself from the "greed and corruption" of her colleagues by becoming the first member of Congress to post her earmarks, her schedule and her financial disclosures online. As a senator, she passed a bill, the STOCK Act, to ban insider trading by members of Congress.

When she launched her 2020 presidential campaign, the first policy that Gillibrand released was a plan for publicly financed elections, which she described as "actually getting money out of politics as a way to go to the root of the corruption and greed in Washington." She claimed "experts have agreed that it's the most transformative piece of legislation."

Ultimately, Gillibrand explained that corruption was "denying your voice being heard" and argued her plan would "restore the democracy back to you, your family, your community" — a response that echoed the language she used to describe her grandmother in a somewhat strange juxtaposition of Albany machine politics and anti-corruption reforming zeal.

After fielding questions about climate change and the Trump administration's foreign policy toward Iran ("What I would do differently? Everything"), Gillibrand concluded by making an explicit argument for a woman in the White House.

"When a woman's in the White House, she's going to get things done," she said. "She is going to be somebody who brings people together, she is going to be somebody who finds common ground through listening and she is going to be somebody who actually heals the nation."

That final message of bringing people together and healing the nation resonated with Anderson, who said "I like the fact that she represents so many different people." Robuck also indicated that Gillibrand was different than all the other candidates for her because, rather than "spewing negativity," she "can look positively and hopefully towards the future."

In other words, voters are seeing what Gillibrand tweeted in a viral message last December: "the future is female."

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.