Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumRemember when Tulsi compared Obama unfavorably to Putin?
I'm disappointed that Tulsi will be back in the October debates. I'd hoped we'd seen the last of Steve Bannon and Trey Gowdy's favorite Democrat.
Link to tweet
?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E649615636088365058&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fpolicy-and-politics%2F2019%2F1%2F16%2F18182114%2Ftulsi-gabbard-2020-president-campaign-policies
Tulsi Gabbard
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@TulsiGabbard
Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama wont bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/what-does-tulsi-gabbard-believe
Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican, is one of her closest friends in Congress. He first spied her on the House floor, sitting on the Republican side of the aisle. This sounds terrible to say, but its also trueyou know, shes cute, he says. So if youre sitting on that side, and its a boring speech, youre going to notice.
SNIP
When Clinton won the nomination, it posed a problem for Gabbard, until someone came along to solve it: Donald Trump, whose victory insured that Sanders supporters would pay no substantial price for having abandoned Clinton. Gabbard says that she was shocked when Trump won, and concerned, in so many ways. But, while some of her friends spent weeks fighting depression, she had a more levelheaded reaction. Im a pretty pragmatic person, she says. It was, like, O.K., theres a lot at stake. We are where we arelets figure out how we move forward. And so, when Steve Bannon called and asked her to meet with Trump, at Trump Tower, she accepted. (The Hill reported that Bannon loves Tulsi Gabbard, and that he viewed her as someone who gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff.) Gabbard insists that she never considered the possibilitywhich seemed plausible, in those unpredictable daysthat Trump would offer her a position in his Cabinet. Her claim is not entirely believable, but it spares her from having t
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Cha
(295,929 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
SergeStorms
(18,903 posts)has no business being in the October debate. What does she hope to accomplish? I guess muddying the waters of the actual Democratic candidates is her main goal. Apparently she believes her astoundingly lackluster career in Congress qualifies her to be president. She's too hawkish for my tastes, and doesn't seem to mind stabbing other democrats in the back without warning.
Go away Tulsi, just go away.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
lonely bird
(1,642 posts)to simply admit she is a Republican.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)Most of the policies she supports are not merely Dem, but on the left side of Dem, closest to Sanders/Warren. She has one of the more liberal voting records in congress. She's votes with Trump 19.5% of the time... which is less often than Beto (30.1%).
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)votes 75% of the time with progressives, despite coming from such a blue district. (Beto comes from a red state; Tulsi doesn't.)
She was often critical of Obama during his Presidency, and right-wingers like Gowdy and Bannon have strongly praised her. Also, she met with Trump in the Tower a couple weeks after his election, and she was one of the last holdouts among the House Democrats before finally calling for the impeachment inquiry.
http://www.progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?x=0&y=0&house=house&party=D&sort=crucial-lifetime&order=down
Also, 538 doesn't say Gabbard has a similar record to Warren's or Sanders's. They gave Tulsi a "Trump score" of 19.5%; Elizabeth, 11.9. Bernie, 13.1.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)re:
That 538 link I posted (and you referenced as well) shows that Beto's 30.1% vote-agreement with Trump is 11.3 more than what you'd expect from the redness (or lack thereof) of his district; while Tulsi's 19.5% vote-agreement with Trump is only 1.9 more than what you'd expect from someone from her district (i.e. much more in line with her constituency).
I never said they did. I said her positions are similar, i.e. if you compare the stands the three of them are taking in the campaign, as well as things they've all said in the past. (As an aside, it would also be hard to precisely compare their voting records, since she's in the House and they're in the Senate, which means they don't vote on exactly the same bills.)
But regardless of which numbers you pick and how you analyze them, her positions and votes are MUCH more in line with Dems than Republicans, and that's the point.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)from strong blue districts have worse records than she does.
146 Democrats score better than she does -- most from strong blue districts, but even some from blue leaning or swing districts.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)She may rank 147 in how left she is compared to her constituency (which is strongly Dem to begin with), but the VERY MOST progressive Republican rates 233 on that same metric. (And the worst Dems rate at 237.)
There's just no way to look at any of these numbers and conclude she's better aligned with Republicans than Dems.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)The latest Democratic candidate to enter the 2020 race has an unexpected base of support: The far right and conservative media.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who announced her candidacy last Friday, has cultivated a fandom among the right by bashing fellow Democrats and espousing views that break with the party line.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)This is my point, and you keep directing elsewhere.
A couple of differences with Obama still doesn't make her more Republican than Democrat. (And I had my differences with Obama too.)
Not every politician aligns 100% with what you might expect from someone of their party. But look at the sum total of her votes and the sum total of her positions, and there's FAR more Dem positions than non.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)But she's on the less progressive end of the party.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)...and s/he's not the only person here who puts forth that position. So can we at least agree that Tulsi is indeed more Dem than Republican?
As for her being on the "less progressive end" of the party, in terms of domestic policy, I just don't see it. Please check this link... this looks more in line with Sanders/Warren than Biden/Klobuchar/etc.
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/tulsi-gabbard/
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)And on that basis she's nowhere near the Sanders/ Warren end (with A scores). Klobuchar, who has a B rating, also votes more often with progressives than Gabbard does.
Biden is no longer included here because he's not currently a member of Congress, so I don't know where he would stand compared to Gabbard -- but her record isn't the strong progressive record you think it is.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)...because
(a) one votes in the House, the other in the Senate, so they're not voting on the same set of bills
(b) the letter ratings are not based on their votes, but rather their votes relative to their constituency, which means even if they were in the same house (allowing a direct comparison), and voted identically, Klobuchar would rank higher because she comes from a less blue district.
But getting back to the main point, remember that I said Gabbard's DOMESTIC positions are at the Warren/Sanders end of the party. The Progressive Punch rating does not distinguish between votes related to domestic vs. foreign policy.
The facts remain that her voting record is far more Dem than Republican, and her domestic policy positions lean decidedly left. That's all I"ve been trying to say, and I don't think that's disputable.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)Especially because she says she hasn't really changed her mind -- just her political position. That's a bit too convenient.
When she was asked to come home and campaign on the state marriage-equality bill with Mazie Hirono and others in 2012, she refused to, saying she wouldn't get involved in state politics. Given her past very vocal anti-LGBT stance, that was telling.
This first article was from 2016.
The second article was from Jan 2019. It talks about how she defended a judicial appointment by Trump by calling Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris "religious bigot" because they questioned his membership in the Knights of Columbus (a group on the right end of the Church). As a Catholic, I believe Mazie had every right to ask him whether his membership in that far right group would have any bearing on his judicial decisions. All he would have had to say was he would decide based on the law, period, but Tulsi strenuously criticized Mazie for even asking the question.
Yes, she apologized for her past positions when she began her run for President. Not good enough.
://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/surfing-with-tulsi-gabbard-long-before-her-presidential-bid/62604
Shes not reflexively partisan, says Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, with whom shes worked on privacy bills, among other topics;
SNIP
About 10 years ago, Gabbard violated some of the tenets that now make her so popular as a Democrat with an EMILYs List endorsement to boot she was neither pro-choice nor pro-gay-marriage, and in fact fell in line with her erstwhile Republican father. Shes definitely distanced herself since, says Jacqueline Lasky, professor of state politics at the University of Hawaii. She wouldnt have been successful otherwise. (Nationally, theres little talk about it; Kennedy told me he didnt really know about Gabbards early conservative stances.) Hawaii bloggers and reporters widely have Gabbard on record as referring to the agendas of homosexual extremists at one point; when I ask her, she replies, That thing I said ages ago? Yes, I say. Honestly, Id have to go back and look, she says. After repeated follow-ups, the congresswoman replies with a note about her sponsorship of the Equality Act (adding sexual orientation to categories of prohibited discrimination) and of her support for equal treatment of gay service members spouses.
Fittingly for her narrative, though, the explanation for her changed ideology feints us back onto familiar territory the military. It was, she says, the days in the Middle East that taught her the dangers of a theocratic government imposing its will on the people. (She tells me that, no, her personal views havent changed, but she doesnt figure its her job to do as the Iraqis did and force her own beliefs on others.)
https://thinkprogress.org/tulsi-gabbard-regrets-her-history-of-opposing-lgbtq-equality-c9bbb4b01b8d/
Still, progressives might have reason to be concerned about her more recent social positions. In an op-ed just last week, Gabbard excoriated fellow lawmakers who incite bigotry based on religion. Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) had criticized Brian Buescher, one President Donald Trumps judicial nominees, for his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization that has campaigned heavily against LGBTQ equality and a womans right to have an abortion. Gabbard accused them of engaging in anti-Catholic religious bigotry for questioning his affiliation with the controversial group.
Opponents of LGBTQ equality have long claimed that its advances infringe upon their religious freedom. Indeed, several cases seeking Supreme Court review involve businesses refusing service or employment to LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs. Despite this claim, studies have shown that those who defend such discrimination do so regardless of whether its motivated by religious beliefs or not. Gabbard seems to subscribe to the same disingenuous interpretation of religious freedom to defend a powerful and politically influential organization like the Knights of Columbus.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)First, there's that same oxy article again that has been mentioned before. There is no quote there of her exact words NOR what they were said in response to. For example, maybe she was talking specifically about still being personally against abortion (a not uncommon position among pro-choice politicians), we don't know. Without any further substantiation, I discount your "personal views havent changed" assertion altogether... we don't have ANY exact quote, and even IF she wasn't wrongly paraphrased, we don't know exactly what it is she was referring to when she said whatever it was she said. Between the paraphrase (lack of actual words spoken) AND lack of context for whatever it is she DID say, journalistically, that line from oxy is void of meaningful content.
As for the thinkprogress piece, you omitted this relevant info:
And as for the Buescher question, we discussed that already at https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287228561
...see posts 56, 64, 65.
But NONE of this matters to the only point I've been trying to make in this thread. All this other stuff is you trying to put forth other reasons to dislike her. You and I may disagree about whether those other reasons hold water, but either way they do not change the fact that, as I said, her voting record is far more Dem than Republican, and her domestic policy positions lean decidedly left. And none of these other things you mention show otherwise.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Iggo
(47,489 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided