Lending ‘Star’ power to the Clinton campaign in St. Pete

Star Jones stopped by the South St. Petersburg Voter Registration Kick-off on Mon., Oct. 17 to encourage Clinton supporters as they geared up to go out into the field to campaign.

BY FRANK DROUZAS, Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG –Lawyer, journalist and television personality Star Jones—one of the original hosts of The View — made stops in St. Pete and Tampa Monday to campaign for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

A women’s and diversity advocate and a former public prosecutor, Jones aimed to highlight Clinton’s vision for an America that is stronger together with an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.

While in St. Pete she stopped off at the South St. Petersburg Voter Registration Kick-off, where she spoke to eager Clinton supporters gearing up to go out in the field to campaign. Jones stressed the importance of voter turnout along with the influence that Florida’s 29 electoral votes can have on the upcoming election.

“I’ll tell you one thing is for certain,” Jones said, “Trump can’t win without Florida.”

She added that she believes there are a number of paths to victory for Clinton without winning Florida, but urged everyone in the state to stop Trump from becoming our next president.

Jones pointed out that she has known Clinton for 20 years and was not speaking as the “celebrity Star Jones” but a member of “Team Hillary.”

On the set of The View years ago, Jones asked Clinton when was she going to run for president. At the time the thought hadn’t crossed the former Secretary of State’s mind. Jones told her “when you’re ready, I’ll be ready to help!”

And that’s exactly what her Tampa Bay visit was all about, helping her friend become the first woman president of the United States.

“It makes me so proud to be out here working for her on the ground,” Jones said. “I know what the stakes are in this election.”

In urging the small crowd on hand to campaign for votes for Clinton, Jones underscored the importance of issues that matter, such as equal pay for women. She noted that 40 percent of American women head their households.

“So if you’re not getting equal pay for equal work,” she said, “your family is suffering!”

Protecting social security is another key issue, as Jones said people should not have to ask themselves, “Do I eat or do I pick up my diabetes medicine? That’s wrong in the United States of America!”

Referencing Clinton’s WikiLeaks email scandal, Jones urged her fellow campaigners to ask, “What the hell is WikiLeaks? Why does that matter to you? Is that going to make your kid come out of college without a mountain of debt?”

Noting that the next president will appoint three or four Supreme Court Justices during his or her term, she asked rhetorically, “Do you trust Donald Trump with the Supreme Court?”

Bringing up Trump’s seemingly uneven temperament, Jones said we should want someone to make learned decisions based on facts and the people around them to make “good sense.” As for trust factor, Jones said she would trust Clinton with her life.

“She’s been working for me for a long time,” Jones said. “She was my senator in New York. Those choices that she made really impacted my actual life. Where I could go, what I could do, how I could grow.”

Jones has known Trump personally for more than 20 years, and found herself at odds with him when he began his “birther” conspiracy involving President Obama, even going so far as to insist the president reveal his birth certificate to prove he was born in the United States.

Jones said she saw it as an attempt to classify President Obama as an “other,” and called Trump personally to tell him it made him seem like a racist. Trump ignored her, Jones said. She in turn “blasted” him on a Today Show appearance.

“You don’t get to claim me as a friend if your values basically discount me,” Jones averred. “And it’s gotten worse. So we’re not talking about race now, we’re talking about gender. We’re talking about the way you refer to women. You think that women are beneath you.”

She urged fellow campaigners to push to make this Nov. 8 election a landslide victory for Clinton, so Trump “and his minions” cannot claim there was anything “wrong” with the election.

“That’s what you want,” Jones declared. “You want to be able to throw it in his face! We want to really be able to say, ‘Not only did we beat you, but you got beat by a girl!’”

To reach Frank Drouzas, email fdrouzas@theweeklychallenger.com