One of the odder phenomena of the 2024 presidential election is a certain 2020 Democratic candidate who has strayed very far since then. I took a look at her options at New York:
A month ago, when ex-Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential wannabe Tulsi Gabbard showed up at a Mar-a-Lago event, I wrote about the logic that could make her a highly unconventional but not entirely implausible 2024 running mate for Donald Trump. Once a major backer of Bernie Sanders, Gabbard’s trajectory toward MAGA-land has been steady since she left the Democratic Party in the fall of 2022, a main course she served up with a side dish of jarring candidate endorsements (e.g., of J.D. Vance). Even when she was still a Democrat running for president, though, her orientation was more MAGA-adjacent than you might expect, as Geoffrey Skelley explained in 2019:
“Gabbard’s supporters … are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. …
“In fact, Gabbard has become a bit of a conservative media darling in the primary, with conservative commentators like Ann Coulter and pro-Trump social media personalities like Mike Cernovich complimenting her for her foreign policy views. In a primary in which some 2020 Democratic contenders have boycotted Fox News, Gabbard has regularly appeared on the network. Just last week, Gabbard even did an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, a far-right political outlet. She’s also made appeals outside the political mainstream by going on The Joe Rogan Experience — one of the most popular podcasts in the country and a favored outlet for members of the Intellectual Dark Web, whose purveyors don’t fit neatly into political camps but generally criticize concepts such as political correctness and identity politics.”
So her parting blast at Democrats as controlled by an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness” didn’t come out of nowhere.
But much as Gabbard might be an outside-the-box running mate for the 45th president, it does seem there is another 2024 presidential candidate whose extreme hostility to mainstream institutions and difficult-to-categorize views might make him a better match for her: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And sure enough, according to NBC News, the wiggy anti-vaxxer is interested in Gabbard:
“The four-term former member of Congress from Hawaii is now getting consideration for both former President Donald Trump’s and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tickets, two sources familiar with the candidates’ deliberations told NBC News.”
The prospect of choosing between these two politicians appears to have left Gabbard feeling she’s in the catbird seat:
“As one source said, Gabbard would be more likely to seriously consider running as Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee had she not been swept up by the possibility of serving with Trump. This person said Gabbard ‘was enticed’ by the chance of serving on Kennedy’s ticket but is now focused on the possibility that Trump will select her.
“’My understanding is that Tulsi is convinced that Trump is going to pick her,’ this person said. ‘Had that not been the case, she probably would have gone with Kennedy.’”
Since Kennedy has scheduled a running-mate reveal for March 26 in Oakland, we’ll know soon enough whether he chose Gabbard and Gabbard chose him. Others rumored to be on his short list include New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, and California entrepreneur and major RFK Jr. donor Nicole Shanahan.
As NBC notes, it’s more than a bit unusual for people to be considered for multiple presidential tickets:
“[I]t’s exceedingly rare for a politician to attract interest from more than one presidential ticket or party. (Ahead of the 1952 election, Democrats and Republicans led dueling efforts to draft another politically ambiguous veteran, Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, for the presidential race.)”
It’s hard to say what Tulsi Gabbard would think of this comparison. After all, Ike was a bit of a warmonger.
We have seen extreme views on the importance of the “moral values” response to an Exit Poll question. At first it was touted as the main explanation for Bush’s victory. Then the question itself was blasted as poorly framed and practically worthless.
In fact, the question was a useful one for identifying a large and important component of Bush supporters, though it probably did not make the difference between 2000 and 2004, which was largely due to Bush’s connection to 9/11 and fighting terrorism.
But criticisms of the question as invalid miss the mark. It not only showed a large difference between Bush and Kerry voters in the main exit poll, but it did so in a comparison of open and closed questions in a Pew post-election poll, so the original finding was not just a function of question wording. Moreover, the claim that “moral values” was not an issue like the others asked about is incorrect. Was “terrorism” really an issue on which the two candidates differed? Hardly. What the choice of “terrorism” by Bush voters indicated was their view of character: Bush as a strong leader, just as moral values also was taken to indicate character, Bush as a faith-based President. Neither response was an “issue” in the sense that taxes was an issue.
Competing in terms of “moral values” will be important for a future Democratic candidate.
We have seen extreme views on the importance of the “moral values” response to an Exit Poll question. At first it was touted as the main explanation for Bush’s victory. Then the question itself was blasted as poorly framed and practically worthless.
In fact, the question was a useful one for identifying a large and important component of Bush supporters, though it probably did not make the difference between 2000 and 2004, which was largely due to Bush’s connection to 9/11 and fighting terrorism.
But criticisms of the question as invalid miss the mark. It not only showed a large difference between Bush and Kerry voters in the main exit poll, but it did so in a comparison of open and closed questions in a Pew post-election poll, so the original finding was not just a function of question wording. Moreover, the claim that “moral values” was not an issue like the others asked about is incorrect. Was “terrorism” really an issue on which the two candidates differed? Hardly. What the choice of “terrorism” by Bush voters indicated was their view of character: Bush as a strong leader, just as moral values also was taken to indicate character, Bush as a faith-based President. Neither response was an “issue” in the sense that taxes was an issue.
Competing in terms of “moral values” will be important for a future Democratic candidate.
The point about the moral values issue is NOT that it led to a wholesale win by Bush. Rather, the issue motivated people to come out who would not have come out otherwise. Remember, the election was close. A small increase in turnout was all that was needed.
If it motivated an additional 20,000-30,000 to come out, that would be important.
Martin – One answer to your lead-off question is that the largest demographic gain for Bush over his 2000 count was white women. He added about 4 million white women voters to his 2004 popular vote total, which is one way to explain his margin of victory. Other recent studies suggest that these were mostly married women. It would be interesting to know the class breakdown of these women and to get some idea of the issues that motivated them.
I second Mark Fine’s request. Tell us, if it wan’t the Jesusland people who put Bush into office, what crazies did so?
I admire and respect Ruy’s statistical analyses, but I think maybe the Democrats have gone a little overboard in looking at statistics. The same set of statistics can yield a dozen sets of conclusions.
I believe the definitive study that needs to be done will ask a lot of people these questions to gain some valuable qualitative data: did you hear Kerry’s message, did you understand his message, did you believe his message, and if you did all this, was that message or was it not important to you? Why or why not?
I simply cannot understand how rational people could vote for a man who has not really done anything to reduce tensions (he has played upon them and, if anything, increased them), improved the economy, brought any noticeable compassion to his task as he said he would, or been the “unifier” he said he would be.
Does this mean about 50% of the electorate is NOT rational? The explanation of the evangelical and theocon votes going to Bush, blocs that are not necessarily rational or pragmatic, made for a very pat explanation. If not that, then what was it?
Get that study going, somebody.
I think that the backlash against the moral values thesis has been too extreme. “Moral values” is ambiguous, of course, but the fact of the matter is that President Bush received 80% of the votes of the 22% who said that moral values was their most important issue. That suggests that a sizable number of voters interpreted moral values as meaning gay marriage, abortion, etc.