'If she was pro-life I'd vote for her': Kirsten Gillibrand hits New Hampshire

The senator is running for president as a mother, a feminist and an experienced politician capable of reaching across the aisle

Josh Wood in Hanover, New Hampshire

Sun 17 Feb 2019 08.39 EST Last modified on Sun 17 Feb 2019 08.52 EST

When Kirsten Gillibrand tells people she’s running for president, she often talks about running as a mother.

Being a woman and a mother is central to the New York senator’s political message, a defining note even if not always intentionally so, as her campaign trail anecdotes continually drift back to it.

She says she views the world through a mother’s eyes, caring for the children of America and the world like she does her own. It is part of her origin story, of her first visit to a campaign headquarters with her grandmother, of how a past opponent dismissed her as “just a pretty face”. To many in America, it was the senator’s commitment to speaking out against sexual misconduct that drove her rise.

In a traditional election year – pretty much every one the US has had so far – being a woman with a defining, defiant and unapologetic voice would be enough to separate her from the competition, who would be men. But this election is different.

It comes after Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, a campaign in which the Republican candidate made derogatory comments about female critics and weathered accusations of sexual misconduct and even the unearthing of a tape in which he said he could “do anything” when trying to seduce women, even “grab them by the pussy”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/17/kirsten-gillibrand-president-new-hampshire