Throughout my life, and this campaign, my motivation has been to serve God, our country, and the American people as best I can. I feel that the best way that I can be of service at this time is to continue to work for the health and wellbeing of the people of Hawaii and our country in Congress, and to stand ready to serve in uniform should the Hawaii National Guard be activated.
After Tuesday's election, it is clear that Democratic Primary voters have chosen Vice President Joe Biden to be the person who will take on President Trump in the general election.
I know Vice President Biden and his wife and am grateful to have called his son Beau a friend who also served in the National Guard. Although I may not agree with the Vice President on every issue, I know that he has a good heart and is motivated by his love for our country and the American people. I'm confident that he will lead our country guided by the spirit of aloha — respect and compassion — and thus help heal the divisiveness that has been tearing our country apart.
So today, I’m suspending my presidential campaign, and offering my full support to Vice President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together. (Tulsi Gabbard)
————
I’m truly surprised she endorsed Joe over Bernie. It’s a long shot, but here’s a woman for Biden to pick as his running mate. I think he’d be a genius to do so. Wherever we stand by election time with the Covid19 unpleasantness, I think we could all be ready for a healthy dose of aloha and ohana spirit.
TTG
TTG
Can you assure me that Biden will …?
Not at all. Old Joe is a gaffe machine, not a genius. But with this endorsement, I do see a Biden-Gabbard ticket as a possibility.
Wouldn’t this open Biden to the obvious attack of “Vote Biden, get Tulsi”?
I like her and her FP stance in particular, but the media has already shown how willing they are to build the narrative of the unelectable “Assadist” candidate and so on. It sure would be interesting to see how this changed if she does get on the ticket with the blessing of the Dem establishment.
Trump’s campaign will major on Biden’s ailing faculties and the almost certainty that early in his term he’ll have to take the 25th. Then there is the virus factor. He needs the Veep pick to be (relatively) uncontroversial IMO.
This would be too good to become true. Anyway, wonders happen sometimes.
She knows how to play the long game.
No way in hell will he pick her as a Vice Presidential mate…the party machine abhor’s her…why do you think Sanders was destroyed…anything progressive is a no no…
notlurking
We are waiting for her with open arms in the GOP where she can start a revival of the Rockefeller wing.
TTG
Can you assure me that Biden will drop dead?
Bernie is in deep trouble. It is, unfortunately, the smart move.
I think it is near impossible that Biden would pick her as VP, despite this strange endorsement. The Democrat establishment and the borg fiercely oppose her, and with Biden as President and the coronavirus around, there is a real chance this time that a VP pick will have to take over power from a dead or otherwise incapacitated President.
The move does not make much sense to me except as an “I surrender, at least for this election cycle” message, I don’t see Tulsi gaining any material benefit from this over endorsing Sanders. The establishment will not suddenly start to like her again because of this.
I also seriously doubt this assessment of Tulsi about Biden:
“I know that he has a good heart and is motivated by his love for our country and the American people.”
Disappointed, but not surprised.
But, unless something has changed of which I am not aware, Warren closed down her campaign without endorsing anyone. Why not Gabbard? Not impressed by this move.
Maybe she thinks this is, as eenginneer proposed above, playing the long game. I don’t see how that works, unless abject surrender on essentials (such as the willingness to contest the war/regime change ploy amply on display with Biden & ilk) makes an impression on The Blob that she can be relied upon to do likewise if she ever is entrusted with executive powers. But infliction of such horrors as those brought about by the dismemberment of Libya are scarcely indications of Biden having a good heart (or even a foresightful nature concerning consequences).
What the US needs is an end to these abjectly stupid actions, not a new lease on life for them. So, the more I think on this, and in consideration of her previously professing a principled stand in this issue, this is a deal-breaker for me, fully as bad as Sanders’ actively working for the Hildabeast’s election in 2016, making me question her sincerity in general.
It is past time to put the kibosh on the imperial fantasy; stand up and be counted or slink away.
Mystifying and dispiriting. Maybe “they” finally got something on her. Alternatively, did she get any sort of contentment out of Joe in return? If she did will he be able to/want to remember it come November 4? There’s no chance the “organs” sector of the deep state would take Tulsi-as-Veep lying down. Or any significant foreign policy or national security position for that matter. She may think by endorsing Biden She’d at least partway move back into the good graces of the Democratic Party establishment, but that’s a false hope. They’ll never trust her again. If she’d kept her endorsement powder dry, even though she’d get no MSM coverage going forward (not the vanishingly small amount she got as a candidate), more than a few of the non-MSM platforms, video and otherwise, that have in some cases millions of readers and viewers, would have been happy to have her on frequently. She’ll still get some of that exposure but not much. She may get some MSM stops in the next few days, but that will be it.
IMHO, Kamela Harris, Stacy Abrams, or Susan Rice.
Biden says: “Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line in service of this country and continues to serve with honor today. I’m grateful to have her support and look forward to working with her to restore honor and decency to the White House.”
Hmm?
Tulsi would bring in some republicans but Biden won’t choose because he’s a puppet of the borg and they thrive on the chaos created by our military interventions. The LSMFT community doesn’t like Tulsi for the unforgivable sin of speaking out against gay marriage as a teen–she wasn’t born with the progressive purity of heart. Then there’s Assad. The media ignored her visit with the orthodox priest in Aleppo who after its recapture by the SAA praised Assad for saving them from the jahadis. The feminists resent Tulsi for being pretty.
All these groups prefer Lady Macbeth be the one to catch Joe when he falls.
I agree that she would be a long shot pick for VP. Biden can take HI for granted so aside from her gender, Rep. Gabbard doesn’t bring anything extra to the ticket on that important score. Sen. Warren didn’t win her home state of MA which is a strike against her, but MA will also go for Biden anyway. Sen. Harris is a woman of color, earning her 2 Identity Politics points. But like the others, Biden can take CA for granted. Nevertheless she may be in the running because of her ethnicity.
My guess is that Sen. Klobuchar will be the pick, as she would likely deliver MN which, until we were beset by the pandemic panic, was possibly in play for Trump. Interestingly though it’s thought that, like Warren, Klobuchar was poised to lose her home state race and that’s a big reason why she dropped out right before the primary was held.
There aren’t many pols who dare to advocate for much less military spending and more for “quality of life” type expenditures, so I’ve admired Rep. Gabbard for her stance in that respect. But heaven forbid, such a political position is treated like outright heresy. Along with bravely bucking FP orthodoxy, she’s a pariah in her own party because of it. I’m sure a lot of you have already read today that her brother said she wanted to endorse Sanders BUT HE WOULDN’T ACCEPT! If this is true, it’s like Gabbard’s radioactive or something. I just don’t get it.
My swag is Obama picks either Kamala or Amy. He is running the show for Team Biden.
Biden does not need Kamala to win California. And probably does not need Amy to win Minnesota.
Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan? She is a moderate like Joe, a former prosecutor, won the governorship by a ten point margin. And Michigan has 16 electoral votes.
Michelle Lujan, Governor of New Mexico? A good choice to get the latino vote. But only five electoral votes.
Tulsi for UN Ambassador.
This is not going to happen. The Dem establishment really hated 2 candidates – Bernie and Tulsi. The liberal press have mostly ignored her.
The twitter blue ticks have spouted a lot bile. I’m not sure why – it wasn’t just Israel Firsters. Maybe they suspect she is not onboard for open borders and is secretly socially conservative?
She was easily the best person in the field, but the DNC &co would rather lose to Trump than see her in the White House.
She would qualify as a “woman of color.”
I suspect the DNC and associated party grandees looked at the COVID situation and leant heavily on candidates to back the front runner, so avoiding having their supporters congregate at rallies or a brokered convention. That the front runner happened to be who they wanted to see as their candidate surely helped.
I saw this morning that Tulsi’s brother posted on facebook that Bernie declined her offer of endorsement…
Joseph Chaisson,
I saw that yesterday. I don’t know who Kai Gabbard was responding to and he has since removed that Facebook comment. He also admitted he doesn’t know the exact nature of his sister’s relationship with Sanders. Here’s his original comment.
“Thank you for your kind words sir,” the comment reads. “Bernie has treated my sister like sh*t all the way through this. She has tried to endorse him again and he has refused her support. Whoever he’s getting his advice from has done a terrible job.”
“You go ahead keep talking about however you want, but know this. She is just going to continue being independent and keep fighting for us. Bernie isn’t the man me and Tulsi once supported 100 percent. I don’t know what happened to him. He’s refused to take the fight to the establishment like Tulsi continues to do. Aloha to you and yours.”
Who knows what happened between Bernie and Tulsi. Like I said, I was surprised she endorsed old Joe over old Bernie. She’s pragmatic and independent. She has demonstrated an ability to work in a bipartisan manner without demonizing anyone. We need a lot more like her.
I’m also partial to the aloha spirit. I thoroughly enjoyed my three and a half years in Hawaii. For two of those years I spent a long weekend every month with C Company, 1/299th Infantry on Maui. I spent another year working fairly closely with the local pig hunters and pakalolo growers in the mountains surrounding my RECONDO school in the Kahuku Mountains. I experienced aloha and ohana rather than anti-haoli discrimination. If Tulsi can bring that spirit to the rest of the US, I’m all for it.
Gabbard endorsement doesn’t surprise me. Her claim to fame is that she speaks truthfully about our mideast adventures…and? Her domestic politics mirror the growing dingbat coalition. I would say that she is a poor man’s Ron Paul but that wouldn’t be fair to Ron.
He had the integrity not to endorse the detestable Pierre Delecto.
‘Hairy-Legs’ Joe: I’m excited to present my running mate, Tally Gourd- What? No- Gabby Ward- I mean the next Vice Governor of the United States, Wally Gizzard!
Interestingly, the CFR membership rolls contain a one Gabbard, Tulsi; no Obiden Bama, however.
TG
I share your view of Tulsi, aloha spirit lives!
I have never met her, but I voted for her.
I have no “inside information” about her endorsements.
But I am sure that the biggest influences on her views of foreign policy were from Dennis Kucinich, and also from William R Polk.
It is a surprise to me that Tulsi’s campaign was so vilified in her district. That may have been the influence of team Hillary, and perhaps also the old Dan Inouye team. Tulsi never worked for Inouye, she did work for Senator Dan Akaka. Remember that Inouye allowed himself to be Nixon’s point man for justification of the VN war, and only late in life did Inouye apologize and renounce that view. Akaka was never as powerful as Inouye, and he never took elocution lessons either. Akaka had a big Hawaiian heart, and he understood aloha spirit and the need for USA to get out of endless war.
People in politics do what they have to do, or sometimes are forced to do. So Gabbard has endorsed Biden.
Just because Gabbard has endorsed Biden doesn’t mean that we have to. We can if we want to. But we don’t have to.
I hope the Movement Gabbardists can still put her name as a choice for President on all 50 state ballots.
My SWAG is Biden picks… Hillary.
Though Michelle Obama is an obvious option, too.
Or some other losing choice.
Tulsi Gabbard is only 38 yrs old . I believe she has many years left in politics
Tulsi has insulted Queen Hilary. Hilary is a narcissist. Gabbard has no future in the DNC because narcissists hate you utterly and permanently when you cross them. Bernie and Biden are both beholden to HRC. Mitt Romneys senate vote against Trump is an example of that narcissistic hatred.
I have experienced this bizarre behavior myself from an Australian public figure for no more than correcting a date during a lunch discussion.
Linda –
I hope so, but Kai Kahele is going to take her congressional seat in November. Plus she has made many enemies in Hawai’i political circles including Mazie Hirono.
My question is will she get an apology from Hillary Clinton for defaming her as a Russkii asset? Probably not. Or from the many who called her an Assad shill, a secret Trumpista, a David Duke neo-Nazi, a queerbaiter, and an agent of Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalism.
I never understood the Assad shill comments considering that Jimmie Carter and many others had shaken Assad’s hand. Trumpista? She called him “unfit to serve”. David Duke? He also praised Ilhan Omar but nobody spoke out against her. Queerbaiter? As a teenager she supported her father’s conversion therapy for LGBTs, but publicly recanted well over 15 years ago. And yes she is a Hindu, but not a nationalist, she stopped reaching out to Hindu-American Modi supporters when they endorsed DJT.
Biden didn’t recognize his own wife when she walked up to him. It was captured on video. Biden more often that naught, has the look of deer in the headlights. His dementia/alzheimers symptoms appear to be increasing. I cared for my parents in their later years at our farm. My mother had advanced alzheimers. Biden’s not recognizing his own wife, is one of the alzheimer’s displayed reactions.
IMO Tulsi is doing neither our nation, nor her democrat party any favors by endorsing Biden. The Biden of today is not the Biden she claims to have known.
Nice piece on MAJ Gabbard’s candidacy by Kelly Vlahos over at The American Conservative, “What Tulsi Gabbard Did For Us”, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/what-tulsi-gabbard-did-for-us/
Linda.
re Tulsi Gabbard is only 38 yrs old . I believe she has many years left in politics
By the
undesirableTrump cabinet standard – iirc one of his ministers (iirc the one with the nickname “King of Bankruptcy”) is sprightly 83 years old – that’d be about half a century.That said, one of Germany’s prominent virologists said that we have to expect the pandemy state of emergency lasts one year + . I wouldn’t exactly like home office for a year, not to mention things like sickness, death and job losses.
In my neighbourhood some bars have closed till mid of April, local döner houses have closed fully, others don’t allow eating the food there anymore. There are now distance lines at the counters in the supermarkets, a rule naturally ignored by the dummies.
Yesterday a young 1,90m & BMI 40 & IQ 20 man refused to attend these distance rules because “he likes to stand where he stands … äh … you … woman”. Admittedly, in this combination walking likely is not fun.
Appeals at his reason bounced off. It’s difficult for a female employee who’s a third of that in terms of mass and size and seven + times superior in IQ to argue with such an example.
A dutch politician made a joke on the hysterical ‘hamsterkäufers’ who buy up all the toilet paper – to an extent that others are joking about toilet paper becoming a currency soon – he said “we have enough toilet paper to crap for two years”.
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/9b/0b/81/9b0b81277e936044b7acd9c51d301269–hamsters.jpg
https://www.kidsville.de/media/images/tiergarten/haustiere/hamster-abenteuer.jpg
Cheers to that (with morning coffee), and good health. The bird singing at this time of the day also greatly help me to cheer up.
Joe recently told donors that his VP needs to be able to act immediately. Is this why he’s been out of sight for a week?
Trump will use this against him in the election, I promise you.