Turns out, the Rent Is Too Damn High candidate’s own rent isn’t too dadgum high. Indeed, Jimmy McMillan, who swiped the spotlight during a New York gubernatorial debate Monday night, pays bargain-basement rent, by most standards, and especially Brooklyn's. What’s more, the rent on McMillan’s one-bedroom in Flatbush has been frozen at $800 since 2005, according to
a report in the New York Post.
However, nobody is tossing bricks at McMillan for his high-rent mantra. Leaping to his defense is the building manager of the apartment building where the snowy mutton-chopped candidate has lived for 20 years. "He's not necessarily talking about himself. He's talking about the poor person," Viola Hampton told the Post.
Besides, there’s a reason the rents there are in a holding pattern, Hampton says. “The rents should go up, but they haven't. People don't have that kind of money," she told the Post, adding: "Everybody here is like a family."
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McMillan, a 64-year-old retired postal worker and Vietnam veteran who diverted attention from the six other candidates in the debate, including front-running Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino, says his rent isn’t the issue.
"It's not about my rent. It's not about me," he told the Post, adding that rents elsewhere have risen steadily. "What about the children's future? Where will they stay?"
McMillan’s fame was launched during a rollicking monologue that punctuated a relatively discombobulated debate Monday night. His diatribe, which quickly became a YouTube hit, also earned him some pals, so to speak. "I got a flood of campaign contributions. PayPal, PayPal, PayPal," he told the Post. "People want me to help set up the Rent Is Too Damn High Party in other states. The way people are talking right now, I'm going to be the next governor."
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