A relative of mine worked for Gabbard a couple of years ago. He speculates that she is concentrating on a US Senate run in 2022.
Whatever you may think of her, she’s certainly no Republican. I’m assuming Unreconstrcted Man’s homework is accurate.
Don’t have a cite for this, but someone on FB says that a State Senator has raised more money for his primary challenge for her House seat next year than she has raised for her Presidential run. Let that sink in.
Why would she have to resign from the House now to run for the senate in 2 years?
Wouldn’t she have a stronger position saying “I’ve served so well in the House that now I want to move up to the Senate–vote for me” . By not running, her opponent will be able to say “hey, she’s a dropout, couldn’t even handle being in the House-don’t vote for her.”
(disclaimer: I know nothing about Gabbard or the state politics in Hawaii.)
That doesn’t sound right. Here’s what I found on a quick search. Tulsi’s challenger raised more money in Hawaii for his House race than Tulsi raised in Hawaii for her Presidential run.
Hawaii is a very provincial place. They don’t care that much about national politics. I can see why they wouldn’t donate that much to a Presidential campaign as versus a campaign for a seat that affects them directly.
The ability to transfer the cash from her House run to her Presidential campaign might also be a reason that she’s choosing to let go of the House run. I think (but am not sure) that the transfers run both ways. I know that Elizabeth Warren transferred $10M from her state run to her Presidential campaign, so I think it’s possible.
In other news, Tulsi just polled at 5% in a New Hampshire poll and 4% in a Suffolk poll, giving her 2 polls out of 4 to qualify for the December debate. She still has to meet the donor requirement with 2 more qualifying polls to get to the December debate, but she’s a lot closer than many.
And, unfortunately, meeting the donor requirement becomes easier with the help of Republican ratfuckers. Some of them may genuinely like Tulsi, but I can also see Republicans tossing $5 her way just to keep her around as a pain in the ass for Democrats during the debates. I think most Democrats really want to cull the herd and having zero chance Tulsi up there just clutters up the debates.
Just a few years ago Gabbard would have been considered a ‘far left’ Democrat. Now you wonder if she’s a Republican because the other candidates are so much farther to the left than she is.
The Democratic party has become a far left party. In a few months we’ll get to see if the rest of the country has followed them. My guess is not.
If she does run as an independent… Romney/Gabbard 2020. That would be an interesting ticket. Grab all the moderate Republicans who hate Trump, and all the moderate Democrats who hate what their party has become.
Gabbard’s never been “far left” – she’s just been weird. Weirdly insisting the Democrats should be shittier to Muslims, both in action and rhetoric; weirdly praising dictators like in Syria; weirdly being opposed to decency towards refugees; weirdly being hostile to LGBTQ rights; and more.
The GOP loves to spread this meme (and has been doing so for decades), but it’s mostly bullshit. The Democratic party hasn’t changed much in terms of issues, and in 2018 ran a similar race, on the issues, to 2006. And the party won both of those midterms. We didn’t do that well in 2016, but that wasn’t a particularly far-left candidate with far-left policies. Hillary was to the right of Obama on some issues – particularly foreign policy.