Last edited Fri Nov 23, 2018, 12:31 PM - Edit history (1)

I will never forget nor forgive her for that....

#1, #2, #3. and #4 - and any others that won't even begin to consider her after how she was involved in the Al Franken situation.

I will never forgive her for forcing out one of our best senators. Gillibrand is an opportunist and is only loyal to herself. She threw the Clintons under the bus as well.

That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of her. My Senator was railroaded. It pisses me off so much still. Senator Franken was critical to getting the ball rolling in the investigation.

I support her fully to continue on in the Senate, but as far as I am concerned her self-ambition and poor judgement cost us Franken and I will not enable that further

Cluelessly taking out one of the best, most liberal Senators we had sure as hell don't look good on the resume of a democratic office holder with presidential aspirations IMO.

But I'd prefer her over a Repub.

as everyone else on this thread.

It was obvious from the beginning that the accusations were bogus. She didn’t even wait for an investigation before calling for him to step down.

Yes, I know others were guilty of that, too, but her voice was the loudest.

I still hold it against her and won’t support her in the primaries because of it. I can only see two reasons for her taking down Al. Neither reflect well on her. The first was that she cynically saw the Fox-generated accusations as a chance to take down a rival. The kinder version was that she was too naive to see that the Franken smear was a hit job and was too set in her ways to back away.

If she’s the party’s nominee, I might fall into line then. In the meantime. Nope.

First they came for Al Franken, and she said... Go ahead and take him.

Not interested in her, no moral courage.

She didn't let the body hit the floor before she pounced. She's an opportunist.

Her sorry performance with Al Franken writes her off for me.

I'm certain that if she got the nomination, Al Franken would get behind her 100%.

But someone help me, what makes her stand out? What is her driving passion? What issues has she shown accomplishment or leadership in?

Just curious - posted from phone or tablet? I ask because i have that problem all the time.

It's the Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm not getting out of bed till my stomach tells me it's time for leftovers

My auto-correct keeps changing Al’s surname to Frankenstein.

She did not answer your question of driving passion, that's for sure. She was bland, full of politi-speak. Did not hear any thing that didn't sounds scripted or that would motivate me to learn anything else about her.

It takes more than "capable" to light the fire of a voting base. She doens't have it.

I'll still keep an eye out for her in case she speaks, but I'm looking for a dragon with fire in its belly. I agree that it takes true passion to move the needle

Bland as bland can be and seemed stiff.

I can’t escape the impression that she threw Franken over as a political calculation.

She's voted in opposition to the Republican agenda something like 93% of the time, one of the best records in the Senate in that regard.

All the Congressional stats are on the 538 blog.

I leave myself open to the possibility that up to 7% of what Trump does is not completely shitty

Her driving passion is sexual harassment/sexual assault.

I saw her speak at an event about sexual harassment in the workplace.

She just doesn't interest me that much at all, because I have zero to go by on what actually makes her tick.

The most I know of her is in regards to the Franken debacle, which did not make me more interested in her. She seemed a bit too harsh there. My opinion.

My ultimate take is that she was remote before, and she is remote now. Not sure I see anything special in her.

Sadly the list includes Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, and Schumer as well.

JoeBiden and Beto not on the list

Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, and Sherrod Brown all seem pretty acceptable nominees to me. I don't think Brown is running, however.

But if you don't want an opportunist to run for president, then you probably don't want a winner. These are politicians that we're talking about, so taking advantage of opportunities is more or less in their job description. Hell, that's what politics is--finding moments of opportunity and moving effectively on them.

You've named 3 strong progressives here, so I hope you're not thinking that they're each unacceptable as a nominee. We shouldn't be so quick to lock in our dislikes. We can't afford to be tepid about our support for 2020

I will not monetarily or volunteer for them in any primary.

Could you explain? IMO he seems in the same line with Warren

For weeks before the midterms. He is a very appealing candidate. Very. Much like Obama.

I went to one of his rallies here in north tx. He's very charismatic and full of passion when he speaks. Definitely destined for much bigger & better things.

Not literally "in the van," but riding along with Facebook.

And oh darn, missed his town hall today! Might be on Facebook?

The truth is they are all political opportunists.

Only Kirsten Gillibrand is said to have "thrown Franken under the bus".

I think it's a little strange that she gets singled out, and it borders on trolling. I see this garbage all the time on Facebook. It's ridiculous.

Franken was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so he would have questioned Brett Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court interview, regarding allegations of Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct. That would have been a huge embarrassment to the Democratic Party. Franken was smart to resign - on his own - no junior member can force another Senator to resign. I don't understand why anybody could imagine that's even possible. Gillibrand is finishing her first Senate term, she is not a leader in the Senate. If anyone forced Franken out, it would be the leadership.

Now, do I want Senator Gillibrand to run for president? No, I want her to stay in the Senate. I think there are better choices. That being said, her record in voting against the Trump agenda is almost unparalleled.

comment are being considered as a candidate for President. The OP asked about Gillibrand and was soliciting our thoughts on her and no one else. If you believe she is being treated unfairly in comparison to others you may or may not have a fair point, but the OP's question was centered on our feelings about her and not others.

Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Cory Booker
Kamala Harris
Sherrod Brown
Jeff Merkley

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/full-list-senators-call-for-al-franken-to-resign-282175

Also, Kirsten Gillibrand is the first-term junior Senator from NY, she is not the "leader" of anything

I don't think it's a compliment to say that a senator is waiting around for her second term before becoming a leader of something.

JFK
Obama

How many terms as Senator? Leader of what?

Who was the last Dem president that was a multi-term senator?
Who was the last Dem president that was chair of a Senate committee?

But she did promise to serve her entire term. Not my favorite but I'd support in the general.

She made a Facebook post. Kampala Harris had a press conference the same morning.

without a hearing. That is why she deserves our criticism.

OMG it's like an alternate universe in here. A universe without any logic or facts.

He did not get an investigation or support from his fellow senators.

Which only determines if he Congressional ethics rules.It is not a finding of guilt or innocence.

It serves no good purpose to deny him the investigatory due process he deserved.

which was his choice in the end. Hr could have stayed and fought but he didn’t.

... he sacrificed himself and his career. He was railroaded. There are no two ways about it.

But it was still his choice. He was not railroaded. He made the decision to resign. No one held a gun to his head. And how would a Congressional investigation have gone with the GOP in control.They would have done everything possible to humiliate Franken and the Democrats. It would not have been the exoneration that you are assuming it would be unless you’re saying that GOP Senators would have treated Franken better than his Democratic colleagues.

But he chose to do so.

Laugh at it all you want.

Instead, he has stayed quiet and allowed a faction to fight his battle for a year. That is the only part in this I think Franken has misstepped and has disappointed me.

... and I'll just leave it at that.

He resigned for the good of the party. He can’t help that some are in denial about what really happened.

I think he enjoyed the job. I liked to hear him call the Republicans out. A real asset. His statement was top notch excellent when it first broke. And I feel that he should have come out and stated that there is no reason to go after fellow Dems. His situation, he takes ownership. From what we know, none of it was a big deal (no more than inappropriate) and anything he could not get past. The real problem was we were running against pedophile Roy Moore and it was coming to the final stretch. That is why Frankin had to put out the statement he was retiring at that point, rather than waiting it out for an investigation.

She was the first to call for his resignation, despite the fact he had stated the charges were bogus and had requested a full investigation. He only resigned after several more Democrats also asked him to leave.
Kirsten is personally responsible for the resignation of one of our best and brightest Senators. She has terrible judgement, and I will never forgive her.

Railroaded and betrayed.

Franken had already announced the press conference about his political future a day before any of the 38 Senators called for his resignation. Gillibrand was the first to call for his resignation, in a Facebook post, but all the others did so the same morning, some within minutes. The was obviously a coordinated effort by party leadership with Franken’s full cooperation. If there is any to blame, it is Schumer.

This is where I see Frankin's stumble in not giving us the down-low, but allowing it to manifest to the point of saying Gillabrand's name, tie her to a stake.

He may not even know that DU exists.

So, I am not much into pretending I do know when we were not given any information. I am not going to make assumptions and hurl accusations when none of us know the facts, because all got quiet.

We don’t know everything that happened. It is too bad some are making many assumptions and ignoring inconvenient facts. But I doubt that many outside the DU bubble even care about this. Gillibrand just won re-election with 66% of the vote.

I just really have an issue with the unfairness of this.

It’s unfair to single out one person especially when it ignores the facts.

That should be a huge flashing red light that it was all a Roger Stone/Hannity/Tweeden, et al hit job on Al Franken and the ambitious Gillibrand fell for it in seeing an opportunity to get rid of a potential 2020 competitor (she also kicked Bill Clinton under the bus while she was at it. The same Bill Clinton, along with Hillary, who endorsed and supported her when she ran for Hilary's former Senate seat).

Poor judgment, ambition and disloyalty—not a good combination for our 2020 nominee.

Most of the facts are ignored.

I mean, in the interest of fairness, Schumer and the others should be daily excoriated in the same way for the same reasons. It was a collective decision made.

Because of it, I don’t like her (and I don’t care for Schumer that much either). They’re wimps who wanted to set an example of how tough they are on sexual harassment. Instead, they showed the world what bad judgment they have.

do you really think Gilibrand forced the hand of her colleagues?

I blame both of them, perhaps Schumer even more. But I don't trust Kirsten Gillibrand one bit.

I can't ignore the statements by others either - which were quite strong. I think it's fine to say that Franken was considered a liability, to blame gilibrand is very odd to me.

She asked him to resign, even after he said the charges were bogus.

Again are you saying that Gilibrand forced other senators to take the position they did?

Fundamentally it was a leadership and party decision. In that case blame dem senators, instead we get this hyper focus on Gilibrand as if she wielded super powers on her colleagues.

They collectively decided that Franken was a liability.

with facts and logic.

And Schumer, as the Senate Minority Leader, also showed terrible judgement in asking Franken to resign. No one person is to blame for sabotaging one of our best Democratic leaders, but Gillibrand and Schumer stand out as disrespectful and disloyal to a fellow Senator and colleague.

At least, not in those exact words. He did apologize several times. And why does anyone need to be blamed. 38 Senators, including Sanders and Warren, called for Franken’s resignation on the same morning. And a day after Franken announced the press conference about his political future. It is obvious that this was a coordinated effort with Franken’s full cooperation.

He asked for an investigation to clear his name, but he was booted out before this was granted. He apologized not because he was guilty of harassment but because his actions may have been misinterpreted by other people.
It would be nice if the Democrats could publicly apologize to Franken and admit they were wrong to not support him against these false accusations. Gillibrand, as the first to accuse him, and Schumer, as the Minority Senate Leader, should be the ones to speak out.

which is not a finding of guilt or innocence but only a determination if Congressional ethics rules had been violated. And does really think that the republicans who control the Senate ethics committee would have given Franken a fair hearing? It would have been a circus to humiliate Franken. And Gillibrand never accused him of anything. That is just false. She one of 38 Senators who called on Franken to resign after 8 women had accused him and a day after Franken announced a press conference about his political future.

Especially since the Republicans have a history of making up false accusations against strong Democrats. Gillibrand and Schumer appeared weak and easily manipulated during this whole fiasco. No backbone at all. Meanwhile, we have a sexual predator as President, and Gillibrand or Schumer haven’t called on him to resign.

if they did nothing about Franken. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. While the Franken allegations were BS, we can’t take the stance that fellow Democrats should be defended no matter what they do. We should have some standards.

Now you’ve singled out Schumer and Gillibrand, did Warren, Sanders, Harris and Booker all look weak too?

If they were damned either way, they should have made the choice to keep Franken and let him fight the charges. Instead they let him go, appeared spineless and lost their best Senator.

Show some freakin fight. Every damn time.

While Franken was a good Senator how was he the best Senator? Please list his accomplishments as Senator and provide links to prove that he was the best Senator.

Can you cite any facts to support your opinion?

But then the comment should be he was my favorite Senator not that he was the best Senator if there is no factual support of that.