Hillary Clinton visited her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn on Thursday, her first visit to the borough since announcing her presidential campaign.
Clinton spent about an hour with her staff members and introduced herself to some of the staffers she hadn’t met before, Clinton’s spokesman Nick Merrill said. The former secretary of state first met part of her campaign team early last month when two-dozen staffers worked out of her small midtown Manhattan personal office.
Merrill said that Clinton delivered short remarks, telling her staff that while it is important to win, it is also “important to have fun.”
After shaking hands at headquarters, Clinton, Merrill, and Huma Abedin, her longtime aide, visited three local Brooklyn establishments.
The group visited the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange, a cooperative that sells handmade home goods and children’s clothing made by women, where Clinton bought a romper and a children’s book, “Simpson’s Sheep Won’t Go To Sleep,” for her granddaughter Charlotte.
The group then visited Area Kids, a neighborhood toy store on Montague Street, where Clinton bought another romper.
Lastly, they got lunch at Monty Q’s, a pizza and salad joint that some campaign staffers frequent. Clinton ordered a salad, per Merrill, and — unlike her earlier campaign visit to Chipotle — the candidate did get noticed and talked to patrons at all three locations.
Clinton’s Brooklyn adventure was filmed by campaign staff, likely for future use in ads and online videos. She was last in Brooklyn last month, before her campaign was officially announced, for an event with Chirlane McCray, the first lady of New York.
Clinton finished the day with her campaign’s first Finance Leadership Summit, a meeting for hundreds of campaign donors who have already met their goal of finding 10 people to write $2,700 checks.
Clinton spoke for about an hour and took questions, according to events attendees. One thing Clinton did not do, according to former Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, an event attendee and supporter, was encourage donors to give to Priorities USA, a Clinton-aligned super PAC that recently received the candidate’s blessing.
Clinton, though, did knock Republican super PACs, according to Bayh.
“They’re sprouting like mushrooms,” Bayh recalled Clinton saying, adding that he sees it as “an unavoidable irony that first you have to succeed to be in a position to change” money in politics.
Although donations were not collected at the event, the candidate did push toward further fundraising efforts, urging attendees to bring more people into the campaign and bundle up to $100,000.
Notable attendees included J.B. Pritzker and Alan Patricof, two longtime Clinton supporters who have hosted fundraisers for Clinton.
Clinton also reflected on 2008, Bayh said.
“There’s something in some ways about being unsuccessful that can be liberating,” said the former senator. “She didn’t have to run (this time). … And that is a liberating perspective.”
Bayh said that Clinton took a question about the now famous moment in 2008 when she teared up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire after finishing a dismal third in the Iowa caucus.
“People got a window into the empathetic person you are, how do we make sure that happens,” Bayh recalled one attendee asking. “Hillary said, ‘Well that’s really on me, to make sure I get enough rest and to make sure I think and reflect. I don’t try and micromanage too much.'”