Tulsi Gabbard dropped a bombshell on Twitter tonight, she is not running for reelection to the House of Representatives.
She also skipped an event in Iowa tonight and appeared on the Sean Hannity show on Fox News.
To me, this sounds like she’s planning a 3rd party run and wants to rat fuck the Democrats and be Jill Stein 2.0 or Nader 3.0
If only someone didn’t already point out this was likely…
I mean, yeah. That’s exactly what Clinton predicted would happen, and DID NOT say that she was a Russian asset–just that Russians favor her.
That said, she’s not really a Jill Stein, since she’s not on the left but more in the center. And the more centrist Democrats tend to be better at being practical and choosing the nominee, while the progressive side of the party is more idealistic. So I’d actually expect that she’d pull more from the Republican side–those who are conservative but can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.
At least, that’s my impression as someone who hasn’t really followed Gabbard’s campaign, and is just going on the few bits I have heard where she seems to push a more central position.
Probably running third party. As far as messing over the Democrats, well…
From this twitter post.
Dunno, myself. The hardcore MAGAts will vote Trump; the ones who voted for him last time because he was the “most interesting novelty” candidate may go to Gabbard, if they’ve soured on Trump in the meantime. ETA: Or those who voted for Trump because he’d “shake up the system” but have since soured, as well.
She might be jockying for a Fox news gig.
Waitaminute, if Clinton is obviously referring to Gabbard as the third party spoiler, and explictly says that Jill Stein is “Also a Russian asset”, how can we reasonably conclude that she does not think that Gabbard is a Russian asset? I mean, if you can pinpoint who that “also” is, and it isn’t Tulsi Gabbard, I’m open to that.
Also, if she doesn’t think Gabbard is a Russian asset, then why did her top aide say this?
I think this “Oh I meant the republicans” is disingenuous backtracking on Clinton’s part.
At worst, she’ll pull some of those Dems who voted for Trump over to her. But the idea that this will hurt the Dems is kind of preposterous.
If Russian media is pushing her, she doesn’t have to be in on it to be considered an asset.
I think it depends on the nominee.
She is in the “the system has been and is broken” space and she could pull off some marginal portion of that support, disillusioned with Trump, from Warren, while Biden won’t get it in any case.
I think Gabbard is the person many republicans would vote for if they had to vote for a democrat. They don’t have to vote for a democrat obviously.
A Gabbard third party run is a bit of a wildcard. It might hurt the Dem nominee in some places, and possibly have little or no effect at all in others.
It would be nice, but improbable, if Sanders wouldn’t use the ‘Rigged!’ excuse every time he loses a primary this around. That could push some voters over to Tulsi so they can think that they’re showing up the DNC. Naturally, Tulsi is already pushing the rigged gimmick.
Which brings up the question, why is she a Democrat? Could she be a Republican posing as a Democrat all along? By running as a Democrat in a blue district, she gets votes just because there is a D next to her name.
I agree with these two observations.
Gabbard’s (presumed) 3rd-party run will help Trump most in the scenario ‘Sanders is vocal about a ‘rigged system’ when he loses the nomination, so his voters go for Gabbard to spite the Democrats.’
Trump would also be helped by a Gabbard run if a centrist (Biden or another centrist) is overly focused in messaging on ‘let’s get things back to the way they were in the good old days.’ There would be change-hungry voters who don’t like Trump, but would be revolted by an official Democratic message that ‘everything will be great if we just get rid of Trump and go back to the old ways.’
(And as mentioned in another thread, I’m another who believes that Gabbard’s ultimate goal is to land a nice lucrative job with FoxNews, after November 2020.)
Not unlikely. Follow the money again.
Bernie was never a Dem until seven months ago. Running in Dem primaries against Dems who’d worked in the party for years, you expect the party to do him any favors? He lost primaries to HRC in 2018 because more Dems voted for her. Duh.
Will Gabbard stage a presidential run now, either as a Dem or an indy? Could happen. We still don’t know who’ll be running next year. The murky is so thick.
She’s a Democrat because in Hawaii you have no chance of being elected to Congress if you’re a Republican.
And the only reason we would not say the contrarian troll vote is 100%“safe Trump” is that what with so many of the likes of McConnell and Graham and so on having bent the knee to His Orangeness, many true contrarian trolls are likely to say, “wait a minute, aren’t the incumbents the Establishment anyway?”
You’d think so. But for some of these people “the Establishment” is ever and always the people who are ‘looking down on them’ and/or failing to accord them the deference to which they feel entitled.
It doesn’t matter which party is in power—the rule of law people who look down on our Contrarians, or the bully-boy tribal ‘winning is the only thing’ folks, with whom the Contrarians identify. The Establishment is the people they hate—not necessarily the people in power.