Kirsten Gillibrand

Friday, June 7, 2019
Des Moines
Blazing Saddle
Bird Dogs: Osh Anderson, Claire Guderjahn

Bold Iowa bird dog Osh Anderson asked Kirsten Gillibrand to make climate more prominent on her website, instead of hard to find under issues. Gillibrand said she had just made it more prominent on her website. She continued to explain some of the actions she would take to address climate, such as passing a Green New Deal and putting a price on carbon.

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Saturday, May 25, 2019
Mason City
Bird Dogs: Kathy Byrnes, Ed Fallon, Marty Monroe, Samantha Kuhn

Samantha Kuhn, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kathy Byrnes, Marty Monroe

Our intrepid bird-doggers talked to Gillibrand about making the Climate Crisis more of a priority and move the issue to the top of her list. By the next day, she had moved Climate Change to the number one issue under her “Restoring our Values” section of her webpage. We were a little confused about the placing of the issue (restoring?huh?), but she did try to do something to make the issue more obvious.

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Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Des Moines
Bird Dogs: Kathy Byrnes, Ed Fallon, Kelly Quinn

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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Des Moines, The River Center
Bird Dogs: Kathy Byrnes, Ed Fallon, Samantha Kuhn, Matthew Peirce, Todd Steichen

Matthew Peirce, Ed Fallon, Kathy Byrnes, Samantha Kuhn and Todd Steichen with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Commendably, Sen. Gillibrand began her speech by talking about the tragic, historic flooding in SW Iowa — and she made the climate connection! But notice in the video, below, that she says she’ll talk more about climate change during her speech. She doesn’t.

We were fortunate that, of the ten audience members randomly selected to ask a question, one of our team — Matthew Peirce — was chosen. Gillibrand’s answer was solid. Again, check out the video.

When we talked with her after the event, she emphasized that climate was indeed her top concern. Yet we didn’t get that impression from her speech, since she only mentioned it at the very beginning, and then when it came up as a question.

To sum it up, while we like what Sen. Gillibrand had to say, if she’s serious about climate being her top concern, she’ll have to make it a stronger component of her presentation going forward to convince us.

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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Ottumwa, Market on Main
Bird Dog: Mary Tarnoff

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Monday, February 18, 2019
Iowa City, The Airliner
Bird Dogs: Holly Hart, Miriam Kashia, David Merchan, Christine Nobiss

Attendees say the event venue was too small, and it was difficult to get in. Not all of our bird-doggers could even find each other. David Merchan writes, “She’s not my favorite candidate, however she said all the right things, especially about the Green New Deal. I think that’s a win, as the more candidates who talk about GND and push the conversation to the left, the better chance we have of getting bills like GND passed. I was going to ask her about the Dakota Access Pipeline, and whether she would accept fossil fuel money in her campaign, but the event venue was such a tight space I couldn’t pull it off.”