A Hat Lands In The Ring, Con't

This time it's Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who announced her candidacy last night on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, an outspoken advocate for women’s causes and electing more women to office, is herself entering the 2020 race for the White House, becoming the latest candidate to join what is expected to be a crowded Democratic primary to take on President Trump.

In an appearance Tuesday on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Ms. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said she was forming an exploratory committee to raise money and travel the country for her run. She is scheduled to start campaigning within days, with plans to spend the weekend in Iowa.

“I’m going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom I am going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,’’ she said.

Ms. Gillibrand, 52, has emerged as one of the most forceful critics of the Trump administration in the last two years. She has voted against nearly every significant nominee Mr. Trump has put forward, and rallied opposition to his congressional agenda. In the last two months, as she publicly considered a campaign, she has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore the “moral compass” of the nation.

But Ms. Gillibrand, a former corporate lawyer, has been criticized by opponents as a politician without a firm ideological bearing of her own, having transformed from a pro-gun, conservative upstate congresswoman with deep ties to Wall Street financiers to a crusading liberal who rails against guns and refuses corporate political action committee money.

Ms. Gillibrand’s 2020 announcement was widely expected after weeks of presidential buildup, in which she secured office space for a headquarters in Troy, N.Y., and expanded her political staff.

Gillibrand is already being tarred with the same exact brush Clinton was in 2016: a New York senator who was "too close" to Wall Street.  It'll be very interesting to see if New Jersey's Cory Booker gets that same treatment, or if that's only reserved for Empire State women.

We've seen Gillibrand's platform change as well, from an upstate NY Blue Dog with a solid rating from the NRA to where she is now on firearms, a complete 180, once she became Senator.  She's going to have to explain that constantly and people are going to attack her for it.

Again, any Democrat who wins the primaries I will vote for to depose Trump.  I am moderately okay with Gillibrand in the mix, we'll see what she has to bring.