COULD KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND FINISH WHAT HILLARY STARTED? [View all]

[mcar]

Not familiar with this site but it's a good analysis.

http://www.ozy.com/politics-and-power/could-kirsten-gillibrand-finish-what-hillary-started/60258

Kirsten Gillibrand’s résumé looks a lot like Hillary Clinton’s: Democrat, lawyer, senator from New York. But lest you think that Gillibrand is just a baggage-free Hillary 2.0 for 2020, witness her recent forum appearance when asked about the man who defeated Clinton for the presidency. “Has he kept any of these promises? No. Fuck no,” the senator said.

Gillibrand’s four-letter Donald Trump taunt got her heaps of attention, and a good deal of scorn from the folks still trying to maintain some sense of decency in American politics (God bless ’em). It was also a sound bite for her recent #resist-friendly moves: endorsing a Medicare-for-all health system, opposing nearly all of Trump’s nominees. It all smells like someone trying to bridge the Clinton and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party, but when asked about 2020, Gillibrand has said she’s “ruling it out” as she runs for reelection in 2018. Still, things have a way of changing when the White House is involved.

In a little more than a decade in Congress, Gillibrand, 50, has blazed a path that few expected, proving herself a consummate politician willing both to work across the aisle and throw elbows when necessary. She has already racked up an impressive list of legislative successes, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But unlike even Clinton, Gillibrand has expressly pinned her own political future to what might be the true, untapped power in American politics: women. (The senator’s office did not respond to requests for comment.)...

Gillibrand’s high-profile combat with the Department of Defense on the issue earned her praise, regular stints on cable television and made her a mentor and magnet for aspiring female leaders in her party, a role she has maintained while being at the forefront of other issues important to women, like campus violence and paid family medical leave. The mother of two young boys, who must often come with her to work, has also embraced another lesson she learned from Clinton: the power of patronage. Her Off the Sidelines PAC raised more than $6 million over the past two election cycles, and dished out much of it to fellow women candidates. “Now when young women interested in politics ask me for my time,” Gillibrand writes, “I always try to say yes, because Hillary said yes to me.”