It is strange for Clinton to criticize such a fringe candidate. But, Clinton might be thinking much more about Russian meddling than she is about who actually wins the nomination. Probably, her criticism hasn't helped us keep our guard up about foreign intervention either, though, sadly enough. Hawaiians are the best Americans? What the hell is this BS? Interesting idea. But, I think her run is only to polish her own credentials to help her re-up as Rep, maybe run for Senate or Governor down the road. If she runs third party, she could imperil her current office. I think she does a terrible job of handling what she thinks are smears. She gets combative with journalists, she throws accusations around, and spends too much time being aggrieved. Probably it is frustrating for her to be asked all the time about her former anti-gay views, or whether her religion is a cult, or about how the Russians and/or the racists want her to win. You can't really tell people what you stand for when every media opportunity is crowded with a need to defend yourself. But, that's politics. She has had plenty of time to strategize on how to respond to and pivot from these kinds of questions. Trump had a double-helping of that sort of treatment and I can't say he danced through it with grace but he bulldozed through it to get his message out. Gabbard hasn't managed to dance or bulldoze or anything else. She's not a good campaigner. Even with 2/3rds of respondents saying Unsure, the rest are 2-to-1 unfavorable on Tulsi vs favorable. She pushes people away.
So this took way too long to put together, but here is a little history of just one smear - the David Duke endorsement. Draw your own conclusions. 02/04/19 - David Duke tweets about Gabbard 02/05/19 AP News - David Duke endorses Tulsi Gabbard 2020 presidential campaign 02/05/19 Washington Times - Former KKK grand wizard endorses Tulsi Gabbard for president 02/05/19 Mother Jones - David Duke Has a New Favorite Candidate for 2020: Tulsi Gabbard 02/05/19 New York Post - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard gets 2020 endorsement from David Duke And too many more to list. 02/06/19 David Duke - No! I Did not Endorse Tulsi Gabbard for President. OK, so maybe this is just the 24 hour news cycle. Nope. 03/12/19 - Stephen Colbert jumps in. 03/12/19 Newsweek - Why Do Steve Bannon And David Duke Like Democrat Tulsi Gabbard So Much? 03/29/19 Los Angeles Magazine - Some Tulsi Gabbard Supporters Are Becoming a Problem for Her Campaign Pretty quiet on the smear for a while. 06/26/19 First Democratic Debate 07/22/19 Joy Behar on The View asks about David Dukes support. 07/30/19 Second Democratic Debate. Gabbard is getting a little bit of buzz, so the David Duke thing gets mentioned again. 08/02/19 New York Times - Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We’re Doomed 08/02/19 Business Insider - Meet Tulsi Gabbard 08/08/19 Politico - Tulsi Gabbard's daredevil act Just in time for the 4th debate 10/12/19 New York Times - What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? 10/15/19 Fourth Democratic Debate 10/17/19 Clinton claims Russians are grooming Gabbard The Duke smear is now popping up around the web like its a new thing 10/19/19 Marketwatch - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard gets 2020 endorsement from David Duke 10/19/19 Daily Political Newswire - Kiss of Death? Tulsi Gabbard Gets Endorsement From KKK Leader David Duke 10/19/19 Reddit - Tulsi Gabbard gets 2020 endorsement from David Duke 10/19/19 Democratic Underground - David Duke endorses Tulsi Gabbard And many more.
Well first yang stuck up for her Then a couple guys in the media , like Tapper and Van Jones (of course right leaning news too) Then more candidates , Williamson , Buttigieg , and now sanders have all come out essentially calling the accusation bs and irresponsible I wonder if people’s minds will change over time You can suggest that Hillary meant only that Russia was using her as a useful idiot , but the words asset and especially groomed ,IMO, imply some sort of partnership . Plus , the idea was that Tulsi would be running third party Tulsi was about to fall completely off the map , but this drove interest . I don’t wanna see her make the next debate , because we already have too many candidates up there. But she has a better chance now than before I don’t get what Hillary was doing . Maybe now we are more aware of Russian interference, but to what end ? The way it was done and some of the history being reported makes me think it was personal between Clinton and Gabbard , which is just a bad look.
I appreciate the time and effort of @Agent94 ’s post, but it still doesn’t explain why one would want to “smear” a candidate polling at 1% nationally. Is she in danger of losing re-election in her own district to due to this theory also? What’s so special about her?
I'm pretty sure if Hillary Clinton denounced Satan, at least a handful of Republicans would publically respond, "Hail Satan". That Hillary spoke out against her is prima facie proof that she's getting mistreated.
Jonathan Turley's column for The Hill on the Gabbard/Clinton fight https://jonathanturley.org/2019/10/21/149112/ excerpt: Clinton made her accusation on the “Campaign HQ” podcast, telling host and former Obama aide David Plouffe that the Russians “got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate.” That someone appeared to be Gabbard, who she claimed, is “the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.” She warned that Gabbard might run as a third party candidate at the behest of the Russians, continuing, “That is assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she is also a Russian asset.” These comments by Clinton seem right out of the infamous Republican National Convention speech by McCarthy in 1952, in which he painted a widening group of Americans as Russian assets. He declared, “Our job as Americans and as Republicans is to dislodge the traitors from every place where they have been sent to do their traitorous work.” It is an irresistible temptation to portray opponents as Russian cutouts or conspirators, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before accusations of Russian conspiracy moved from Republican to Democratic rivals. Clinton may hate Gabbard even more than she hates Trump, for the contrast Gabbard creates with figures like Clinton. Gabbard is a former Army National Guard major who served in Iraq and has long opposed our foreign wars and interventions. Clinton supported wars in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan before trying to distance herself from those conflicts that cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Gabbard responded to Clinton, calling her “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.” Rather than step back, the Clinton camp has continued to mock Gabbard as a tool of foreign interests for her efforts against wars. In true McCarthy fashion, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill taunted, “Assad day for your candidacy,” a reference to the meeting between Gabbard and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in 2017. The Clinton aversion to Russia appears to be an acquired distaste. Her campaign spent a massive amount of money seeking dirt on Trump from foreign sources, including Russian intelligence assets, in 2016. The Clinton campaign denied any involvement in the creation of the Christopher Steele dossier that the Obama administration used to secure a secret surveillance warrant against Trump associates. The campaign hid its payments to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS as “legal fees” among the millions of dollars paid to its law firm. *** Voters are even more unhappy today with the choice between Trump and his current challengers on the left. For some of us, the choice seems between an environmental apocalypse offered by Trump and an economic meltdown offered by Democrats. That could play into the hands of a strong third party candidate, which is why it is necessary for the establishment to portray such a vote as a Russian conspiracy. more at the link
I've actually been surprised at how non-existant she's been since 2016. Her inability to own her failure is true as ever, but she hasn't been making as many headlines and noise as I expected (thankfully). But, this episode is just more affirmation why she lost and why the Democratic is trash juice.
I get that some moderate Republicans and even some moderate Democrats may not be enamored with Warren or Sanders, but I'm not sure the above statement is true. Is it because there isn't an overwhelming frontrunner to take on Trump as of yet? And to be honest, the candidates are all trying to appeal to Democrats at this point, not the nation. Whoever wins on the Democrat side (sans Bernie) will likely pivot towards a more moderate stance (Warren included). Moderates and Independents always feel shafted at this point in the process, on both sides, because they aren't the ones being catered to.
Her main campaign issue is anti-interventionism which is very popular with all Americans. She will not be able to win, but she can further her cause. If it picks up steam then other candidates will have to incorporate her idea like has happened when Bernie popularized universal health care. There are hundreds of billions of reasons why the military industrial complex and its media and corporate shills are against her.
Respectfully, I think you’re overestimating her chances. She’s irrelevant and won’t impact the party’s platform at all. She’s not polling at 1% and in jeopardy of losing re-election because of some grand scheme to discredit her for reasons unknown. She’s sloppy and inconsistent on policy. Has wonky views on foreign policy and relationships with questionable foreign leaders. Also completely untrustworthy on social issues. Couple that with her flip-flopping on impeachment, skipping the debate, etc; I’m done with her. I won’t be shocked at all if Hillary’s pseudo-prediction is true and she runs third party. In which case, yes, she’ll be the new Jill Stein. Russia will aggressively work to prop up her campaign to undermine our election process and weaken whomever the Democratic candidate ends up being.
I don’t care about David Duke or his endorsement, but I do care about the fact that Tulsi uses the same PR firm as Natalia Veselnitskaya (https://www.fec.gov/data/disburseme...tee_id=C00497396&recipient_name=Potomac+Group) and voted against the Magnitsky Act. HRC probably should have avoided the hyperbole and just said that she’s concerned about Gabbard’s habit of repeating Russian and Syrian talking points. This is a particularly good take on the whole thing: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/hillary-clinton-elevating-tulsi-gabbard/600370/
I don't think she has a chance either. I'm just laying out why she was smeared from the start and continues to be smeared even though she is at 1%. They don't want her message to get louder. The reason to discredit her is clear - billions of dollars. I just stumbled onto a video that sums up what I think is happening, but goes into much more depth than I can. Its pretty interesting if you have 30 minutes. But this guy is probably a Russian propagandist
I think she's justified in some of that outrage because she has served and now she's called a Russian enabler. We've taken that bar down after attacks on Kerry and McCain lowered it into a meaningless resume line. I didn't know when this became a thing because I don't watch cable news, but it reeks terribly for CNN and MSNBS to hire former head spies, who made their bread lying to anyone with a heartbeart...even lying under oath to congress. It's like that time during the Iraq War where the Pentagon pushed former military generals as "paid analysts" and pushed the psyops narrative to promote the invasion. **** Hillary. Anything coming out of her mouth has been cynical rot that is neither uplifting nor unifying. I'm pretty sure her tendrils still run deep into the DNC. I don't know how much influence Obama still has over the establishment, but maybe that's a good thing. I dismissed Gabbard before, but she's a young candidate who doesn't need to take any pills regarding cholesterol, boners, or the heart. Now I'm willing to pay attention.
In 2016. she was a Sanders supporter and at one time the vice chair of the DNC. She resigned that position and endorsed Bernie Sanders just after the February primary in South Carolina which Sanders lost substantially. In her statement at the time, Gabbard stated, From her Wikipedia page: So it appears she's an enemy of Clinton's going back to even before the 2016 primaries with her desire for more debates, support of Sanders, and denunciation of Super Delegates which we all now know Clinton dominated in the 2016 nomination process. Explains a lot.
It doesn’t explain anything. My question was essentially why should I care about somebody that’s polling at 1% nationally and also so unpopular they’re at risk of losing re-election in their own district....and you provided a summary of Gabbard’s involvement in the 2016 election process. Didn’t explain anything. There’s no “smear” happening. There’s no wild conspiracy. Gabbard is a terrible candidate with positions that are all over the place on a range of issues. From domestic issues to Assad to social issues; she’s a mess. And her message is not resonating. Hillary, much like the basket of deplorables comment, made an overstatement that was rooted in truth yet is being overshadowed by hyperbole and exaggeration. I don’t think Hillary actually believes Stein was knowingly nor will Gabbard potentially also knowingly aid the Russian government as an asset. However, it 100% happened in 2016 with Stein being a useful idiot and there’s obvious potential for Gabbard to try to cling to relevancy and follow suit, thus allowing the Russians to exploit her and damage Democrats again.
That is a real stretch. If it was really that popular with Americans other candidates would be taking that position regardless of Gabbard. She is at 1% of the vote. I will tell you that I have heard a lot of military veterans complain that she is over playing her military experience and importance.