Metro

Gov-election crusader has $800 rent

His rent isn’t that damn high!

Jimmy McMillan, the candidate running for governor under the Rent Is Too Damn High Party banner, who stole the show in Monday’s debate, hasn’t had a rent increase in at least five years in his one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment.

The rent at his Flatbush abode has been frozen at a very reasonable $800 since 2005. That’s a better deal than rent control.

“The rents should go up but they haven’t. People don’t have that kind of money,” said Viola Hampton, building manager at the three-unit Nostrand Avenue walkup where McMillan has lived for nearly 20 years.

“Everybody here is like a family,” she told The Post.

Asked about McMillan’s mantra protesting exorbitant rents, Hampton said, “He’s not necessarily talking about himself. He’s talking about the poor person.”

She did say McMillan was a good neighbor who paid his rent on time and was a cheerful presence.

The revelation about McMillan’s very affordable rent comes as the candidate with the distinctive white mutton chops and mustache became an overnight media sensation following his performance in the freakish gubernatorial debate.

His rapid-fire and bizarre one-liners — including the heavily repeated slogan “the rent is too damn high!” — drew over 100,000 hits on You Tube, thousands of e-mails of support from all over the country and scores of media interview requests yesterday.

“I got a flood of campaign contributions. PayPal, PayPal, PayPal,” McMillan told The Post yesterday.

“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,” he said.

“The love that the people have shown me is overwhelming. I’m the hottest ticket in town! This is what I always wanted.”

McMillan, 64, a retired postal worker and Vietnam veteran, downplayed his bargain rent.

“It’s not about my rent. It’s not about me,” he said, emphasizing that rents elsewhere have steadily risen. “What about the children’s future? Where will they stay?”

McMillan disputed claims that he made anti-Semitic comments during a prior run for mayor under the pro-tenant banner.

He said he complained that Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg were getting favorable treatment for housing vouchers.

Meanwhile, Republican candidate Carl Paladino demanded another free-for-all gubernatorial debate yesterday, even as he admitted the seven-way face-off was “terrible.”

Paladino called on Democrat Andrew Cuomo to accept another public showdown in the same mold as the widely panned fiasco at Hofstra University.

“I talked to a few of the other candidates and we agree: There needs to be more debates, and at least one upstate,” Paladino said.

Cuomo refused to commit to more debates and blamed his heavy travel schedule.

Additional reporting by Brendan Scott in Albany and Amber Sutherland in New York