‘We need to put the rockets on full blast now!!!!’ Marianne Williamson celebrates Dem debate stardom

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson took a victory lap Wednesday, writing on Instagram that she wants her fans to put the petal to the metal following a dominating performance in Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate 

‘We need to put the rockets on full blast now!!!!’ she wrote.    

Williamson screen-captured the DailyMail.com home page at a moment when the main banner headline read: ‘A STAR IS BORN.’ 

‘Actually I was born in 1952, but I catch their drift,’ she quipped.

Williamson appeared on CNN during the afternoon to capitalize on the momentum the picked up in the first of two nights of Democratic debating.  She said she hasn’t heard from Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey is not advising her.

Oprah made Williamson’s career take off with a series of television appearances. Williamson was at one point widely referred to as the TV legend’s ‘spiritual adviser,’ a claim she disputed on Wednesday.

And she said Oprah is also not counseling her as she runs for the White House.

‘No. No, no, no, no, no. Oprah? No. Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘And Oprah is a very serious woman, and I would never wish to exploit whatever that contact is in any way, shape or form.’

Williamson said on CNN that longtime friend and confidante Oprah Winfrey is not advising her as she runs for president

‘No. No, no, no, no, no. Oprah? No. Absolutely not,’ Williamson said of her friend for decades, insisting they’re not strategizing together

The 67-year-old helf-help guru tried on CNN to thread a difficult needle that hung over her on Tuesday night: the narrow middle-ground between liberals who want a single-payer, government-run healthcare system and moderates who see that as a losing issue in a general election. 

Williamson said she leans toward letting Americans keep private insurance if they want to.  

‘As a friend of mine said, “Americans want to put mustard on their hot dog if they want to put mustard on their hot dog”.’

Asked if she would give people the option to put mustard on their hot dogs, she replied: ‘That’s what i’m figuring out.’ She claimed that ‘economically it’s better if we completely get rid of private health insurance.’

Williamson insisted that the Democratic Party needs an outsider to win in 2020, in much the same way as how Donald Trump upended the Republicans’ natural order of things beginning four years ago. 

‘Sometimes people are more interested in their club than in their cause,’ she said.

‘There’s an entrenched way of seeing and doing things that did not work last time, and it will not work this time, unless people are open to some ideas that maybe aren’t the ideas that they’re already carrying.’

On Instagram, the standout star of Tuesday’s debate thanked her supporters for providing ‘energy, money, prayerfulness, encouragement and support of every kind. This has been and continues to be a collective effort.’

Williamson told a 10-year-old reporter, Jeffrey Kraft, from Culver City, CA, on Tuesday night that her cat was dead when he asked her if she would have any pets in the White House should she become president

Cub reporter Jeffrey Kraft, who was there as part of nonprofit KidScoopMedia, asked if she had a pet, which she responded, ‘I had a cat and the cat died.’ She added after an uncomfortable moment: ‘The White House is very big. Theoretically you can have a cat and a dog’

Some online compared the moment to an episode of The Simpsons where daughter Lisa writes an angst-filled poem about losing her own pet. ‘I had a cat named Snowball, she died, she died,’ she recites. ‘Mom said she was sleeping. She lied, she lied’

‘I hope those of you who have contributed to the campaign are feeling like I’m doing with your money and support what you would have me do. Please continue to provide the fuel to keep it going.’ 

Williamson captured most of the post-debate oxygen Tuesday night in Detroit, following her unconventional on-stage performance with ‘spin room’ comments that set tongues wagging – including a comment to a 10-year-old cub reporter about her dead cat. 

Speaking with young Jeffrey Kraft of the nonprofit KidScoopMedia, she punted on a question about what kind of pet she might bring to the White House.

‘I had a cat and the cat died,’ Williamson responded. She added after an uncomfortable moment: ‘The White House is very big. Theoretically you can have a cat and a dog.’

She also told Kraft that she would establish a department of children and youth at the White House if she became president.

‘You inspire me than anything else does,’ she told the young reporter. ‘And if I’m president, it’s going to be all about the children.’  

Author Marianne Williamson made her stamp on the spin room, taking up much of the attention after becoming the star of the first night of the Democrat debates in Detroit

While talking to a reporter after the debate, she said she ‘felt dirty’ for agreeing with more moderate candidate John Delaney on health care

Williamson gushed about ‘forgiveness’ and ‘love’ as antidotes to President Donald Trump, but wouldn’t grade her debate performance.

Instead, she said, she would wait to see how political Twitter responded: ‘I’ll tell you later when I see the memes.’

It’s an unusual approach for a 67-year-old candidate better known for her love of crystals and New Age spirituality than healthcare policy and economic strategy.

Williamson is considered a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, running up against seasoned politicians including senators and governors. 

But politics-watchers have cautioned that discounting outsider Donald Trump in 2016 left pundits and polling prognosticators with egg on their faces.

Williamson became the most-searched candidate on Google in 49 of 50 U.S. states in the hours after Tuesday night’s debate, the first of two consecutive events with 10 White House hopefuls on stage each night. 

While she took up the second-shortest amount of speaking time at eight minutes and 52 seconds, Williamson dominated a Drudge Report poll with over 47 percent of its readers declaring her the winner of the debate.

She drove discussion online, as much for her quirky mannerisms and new-age jargon as for her policy ideas.

Perhaps Williamson’s most impactful moment was her comment about President Donald Trump inspiring ‘dark psychic forces’. 

Her comments on slavery reparations and her slap at Trump as the source of a ‘dark psychic force of collectivized hatred’ in the U.S. appeared to win new fans shopping for candidates to back.

And her solution to political difficulty was, she said: ‘Where fear has been harnessed for political purposes, our task is to harness love.’

She told DailyMail.com afterward that ‘racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, homophobia [and] Islamophobia’ are those dark forces, ‘the same elements that make up collectivized hatred pretty much anywhere in history.’

‘Whoever is powerless at the time. And whoever is not powerless, the person that is the autocratic or fascist leader those that they can pick on. This is nothing new in history. Americans need to wake up to this,’ she said. 

Williamson’s plea to the president on Tuesday was that he has ‘harnessed fear for political purposes, and only love can cast that out.’ 

She didn’t appear to lose her liberal street cred by taking a pragmatic approach on healthcare instead of embracing the ‘Medicare For All’ taxpayer-funded proposals of left-wingers Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. 

Before the debate started, most states were searching Bernie Sanders on Google, with some searching Elizabeth Warren and Marianne Williamson. Some states’ searches favored the candidates from there. Including Montana, which mostly searching Steve Bullock, who is the governor there, and Minnesotans searching Amy Klobuchar, who is a senator for the state

During the debate, however, 49 states were searching for Williamson the most. The only deviation was Montana, the third least populated U.S. state, which was still searching for Bullock

The 2020 candidate also said she would not rate her performance until she saw how the Twitter world responded in memes

There is a whole Twitter account dedicated to creating memes with Williamson as the subject. One depicted that America would be focused on Williamson during the debates with the other primary Democrats shocked she garnered that attention

Another meme makes reference to her debate comment where she said Trump is the source of a ‘dark psychic force of collectivized hatred’

Another account posted an altered image of Williamson with her arms in the air and edited crystals into her hands and put the words ‘Single-Payer Health Crystals 2020’ as a parody campaign slogan

Avid Trump supporter, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, jested that he was now going to back Williamson, claiming he already ‘stroked a crystal’ and ‘chanted out loud.’ ‘She’s got the groove!’ he posted Tuesday night

She raised eyebrows on the left afterward by acknowledging that leaning toward Democratic Party centrists like John Delaney made her uncomfortable.  

‘When I said what I said, I felt dirty after I said it,’ Williamson told progressive broadcaster Cenk Uygur.

‘Having to say to myself, ‘You’re agreeing with John Delaney here, you’re really being pulled over here’!’

Her dead-cat moment in the post-debate spin room drew online comparisons with a moment from ‘The Simpsons’ in which daughter Lisa writes an angst-filled poem about losing her own pet.

‘I had a cat named Snowball, she died, she died,’ she recites. ‘Mom said she was sleeping. She lied, she lied.’

‘Why oh why is my cat dead? Couldn’t that Chrysler have hit me instead?’

But it was healthcare that prompted most of her soul-searching.  

‘I go back and forth on the Medicare,’ Williamson told DailyMail.com after the debate.

‘But I don’t know. As of tonight I might be – I think the needle might be moving a little more. If I even mention the word ‘public option,’ my phone lights up with texts from friends [saying] ‘Yaaaaaagh!’

‘But I worry because I do hear the argument about people not wanting to give up their [private] health insurance. I see both sides of that one,’ she said 

As Williamson schooled her opponents on how to avoid letting Republicans outmaneuver them on healthcare on Tuesday night, her voice suddenly jumped octaves. 

‘I have to say, I’m normally way over there with Bernie and Elizabeth on this one,’ she said. But an unexpected vocal tic made it sound like ‘I’m normally way-ee-ay over there.’ 

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, an avid supporter of President Donald Trump and father of Trump’s former Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, joked about Williamson’s performance, saying he might switch over to backing her in 2020.

‘I may abandon my support of @realDonaldTrump and go w/ Marianne Willamson,’ he jested. ‘I’ve already lit a candle, stroked a crystal, got in yoga pose, taken deep breaths, and chanted out loud and I feeling real love right now. She’s got the groove!’

Marianne Williamson’s greatest debate hits – including a ‘Seinfeld’ hat-tip and a YODEL

Only one other Democrat spoke less than new-age guru Marianne Williamson during the July 30, 2019 primary debate, but she made the most of her time, dominating online discussion afterward with quips, quotables – and even a yodel.

‘DARK PSYCHIC FORCES’

Williamson warned against substituting policy intellectual discussions for emotional appeals to thwart President Trump’s use of racially charged language:

‘If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.’

SLAVERY’S ‘EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE’

Williamson defended her recommendation to devote as much as $500 billion to paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves:

‘People heal when there’s some deep truth-telling. We need to recognize that when it comes to the economic gap between blacks and whites in America, it does come from a great injustice that has never been dealt with. That great injustice has had to do with the fact that there was 250 years of slavery followed by another hundred years of domestic terrorism.

‘What makes me qualified to say $200 billion to $500 billion? I’ll tell you what makes me qualified. If you did the math of the 40 acres and a mule, given that there was 4 million to 5 million slaves at the end of the Civil War, four to five — and they were all promised 40 acres and a mule for every family of four, if you did the math today, it would be trillions of dollars. And I believe that anything less than $100 billion is an insult.

‘And I believe that $200 billion to $500 billion is politically feasible today, because so many Americans realize there is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will heal.’

A ‘SEINFELD’ MOMENT

Asked about gun violence, Williamson lumped it into a longer list of Democratic bugbears that she believes can be defeated by taking their money out of the American political system. She ended with a hat-tip to a 1997 episode of ‘Seinfeld’:

‘The issue of gun safety, of course, is that the NRA has us in a chokehold, but so do the pharmaceutical companies, so do the health insurance companies, so do the fossil fuel companies, and so do the defense contractors, and none of this will change until we either pass a constitutional amendment or pass legislation that establishes public funding for federal campaigns.

‘But for politicians, including my fellow candidates, who themselves have taken tens of thousands — and in some cases, hundreds of thousands — of dollars from these same corporate donors to think that they now have the moral authority to say we’re going to take them on, I don’t think the Democratic Party should be surprised that so many Americans believe – “Yada, yada, yada”.’

THE YODEL

As Williamson schooled her opponents on how to avoid letting Republicans outmaneuver them on healthcare, her voice suddenly jumped octaves:

‘I have to say, I’m normally way over there with Bernie and Elizabeth on this one,’ she said. But an unexpected vocal tic made it sound like ‘I’m normally way-ee-ay over there.’

‘Is Marianne Williamson paying for her campaign using the coins from her necklace?’ Twitter left baffled by the New Age author’s quirky jewelry

Twitter was left baffled by Marianne Williamson’s quirky jewelry choice on Tuesday 

She was the break-out star of the third Democratic debate on Tuesday.

But on Twitter, many were more preoccupied with Marianne Williamson’s unusual jewelry choice.

The New Age author donned an usual charm necklace, featuring four golden coins and a gold tag, for the event where she referred to Donald Trump as having a ‘dark psychic force’ on the country.  

Williamson, who has been mocked in the past for her love of crystals and New Age spirituality, was teased again for the fashion choice as viewers pondered on Twitter what it could represent. 

Matt Negrin joked on Twitter: ‘Marianne Williamson uses her closing statement to explain that the three medallions on her necklace are the sacred casings that hold the souls of the three banshees she captured in the Fifth Realm.’ 

‘On each coin on Marianne Williamson’s necklace is the name of one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s ex-boyfriends and the reason they broke up, ‘ Rachel Seville Tashjian added.

Another Twitter user with the name Andrew Chloyd Webber asked: ‘Is Marianne Williamson paying for her campaign using the coins from her necklace?’

‘Marianne is a witch look at that necklace,’ James Patrick Creahan tweeted. 

The New Age author donned an usual charm necklace, featuring four golden coins and a gold tag, for the event where she referred to Donald Trump as having a ‘dark psychic force’ on the country