Politics

Jimmy McMillan: Obama, Romney are ‘too damn’ similar

Zach Gorelick Contributor
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He once announced that “the rent is too damn high,” and now Jimmy McMillan is saying that President Barack Obama and opponent Mitt Romney are too damn similar.

McMillan gained notoriety during New York’s 2010 gubernatorial election after he debated Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino on behalf of his “Rent is 2 Damn High” Party. Claiming to be a “karate expert” with the power to hear “a child going hungry,” he was soon being lampooned on late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, McMillan said that Romney and Obama “are identical twins when it comes to the issues. To vote for Barack Obama is like voting for Mitt Romney.” He added that “Barack Obama does not know what he’s doing.”

When pressed, he begrudgingly endorsed Barack Obama. “Between the two you have to vote for Barack Obama,” he said, “and that’s how sad it is.”

McMillan, who says Americans should stay home on election day, repeated his point that there is no diversity among the candidates, and bemoaned the influence of money in the political system.

“No one seems to acknowledge what I say because I don’t have the money Mitt Romney has,” he said, “People are just in this to get paid. That’s all they talk about during this presidential campaigns: who raised the most money. And they don’t talk about the people at all.”

“We [The Rent 2 Damn High Party] haven’t raised any money. We refuse to accept money. We are running a public campaign that people can understand. This is why the country is in the condition it’s in. You are voting for people who have promised and promised and they can’t deliver and they haven’t delivered.”

McMillan hit Obama hard for his evolving position on gay rights issues. The president needs to be “bipartisan on every issue,” he said.

“You’re the president, why are there foreclosures on homes? You can’t come up and speak about gay rights. You have to be bipartisan. You can’t take sides, you have to ride down the middle.”

When asked who might make a better presidential candidate than Obama or Romney, McMillan said that women are the future of politics.

“The people – the smartest people on the planet – we don’t pay no attention to them, and those are the women,” he said. “A woman could be president in the United States. A woman who knows how to treat children, a woman who knows how to feed children, a woman who knows how to tuck them in bed at night. A woman can do a lot – they just need to be brought forward [to run for office]. Women aren’t running because we made them feel like they aren’t qualified to be the president of the United States.”

McMillan stated that the glass ceiling of women in politics is negativity coming from men in leadership positions. “We men have claimed dominance in politics,” he said, “We don’t think that a woman is qualified to be president. It’s time we rethink that – we are dead wrong.”

“If she’s smart enough to go through nine months of pregnancy to have me and you, she’s smart enough to lead this country to a better world and a better America. It’s like the only thing we think she’s good for is laying on her back, opening her legs and giving us sex – and that is so wrong!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-TeMHys0

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