Hillary Just Headlined a Rally for a Cause She Doesn't Believe In

Hillary Clinton was the star speaker at Gov. Cuomo’s “Fight for $15” minimum-wage victory rally Monday at the Javits Center. Only one problem: She’s not in favor of a $15 minimum wage.

Hillary’s actually right on the policy — but that won’t help her on the politics.

In signing the wage hike, Cuomo earned a heap of credibility with the country’s leading progressives. But he gave most of his attention on Monday to Clinton. Comparing her to his own father, Cuomo said that Clinton is a “progressive pragmatist” like Mario was.

“She has the ability to get it done,” he said of wage hikes on the national level.

Without mentioning Bernie Sanders, Cuomo offered a contrast.

“Government isn’t about advocacy and giving speeches,” he said. “We don’t need ideas that sound good. We need ideas that are good and sound.”

When Clinton spoke, she said the wage hike “started with a movement, the Fight for $15,” but made clear that it wouldn’t have gone anywhere without Cuomo’s pragmatism. “He had to put together the vote.”

Unless “feelings [are] matched with politics,” she said, “we’d still just be sounding and feeling good.”

All very nice — except this isn’t a case of Hillary and Bernie both being in favor of a $15 wage, and differing on who can get the job done. Clinton believes in a $12 federal minimum wage, not $15.

Indeed, in her “victory” speech, Clinton was careful to pledge only to achieve “an increased minimum wage at the federal level” — a phrase with less ring to it than “Fight for $15.”

If Cuomo were going to showcase the guy who believes in this cause, he’d have invited Sanders. At a debate last November, Sanders said quite pointedly that “you have no disposable income when you’re making . . . 12 bucks an hour.” The solution, he said: “Put money in the hands of working people, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”

Clinton’s correct to be cautious. In the same debate, citing centrist economist Alan Krueger, she said: “If we went to $15, there are no international comparisons.” That is: We have no idea if more than doubling the federal minimum wage will cause big job losses — because no one has done it.

(Because of this risk, Cuomo himself is phasing his minimum-wage hike in over more than half a decade.)

Sanders’ debate reply? Nothing on the economics. He said Clinton should “stop taking … advice from economists on Wall Street.”

This rejoinder is potent this season.

People don’t see a choice between wanting good things and actually getting them done, as Cuomo put it. People, particularly young people, see a choice between honesty and corruption.

And that’s why they’re not for Hillary. And it’s the problem with her message of subtle pragmatism.

It’s not hard to see why some would see her caution not as prudence, but as pandering to employers. She and her husband have built an empire based on taking money from large corporations for speeches and for “charity.”

And the optics of Monday’s rally don’t help.

Cuomo invited Clinton because of old-style politics: If she wins, she’ll owe him big.

And the people at the rally weren’t there because they thought it would be fun. They were there because they, too, are politicians, or political hangers-on.

As Clinton said, “I see representatives from the [state] Legislature and from the Congress and from the City Council, and I see representatives from the coalition of unions.”

People support Clinton because it’s their job.

That’s not true of the 18,500 people who showed up to Sanders’ rally last Thursday. He can look out at the crowd and see real fans — the New Yorkers who have registered to vote in record numbers in the past few months.

Sanders didn’t need a half-dozen politicians and union leaders to vouch for him before he talked.

“People are angry because they’re afraid,” Cuomo said Monday, circuitously explaining why Hillary isn’t about to win New York in a landslide.

But “anger” is a misdiagnosis. People aren’t so much angry as they are emboldened.

To win big in her adopted home state on April 19, Hillary must hope enough voters aren’t emboldened: that is, willing to accept politics as usual rather than risk real change.

This piece originally appeared at New York Post

This piece originally appeared in New York Post