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.
Chris, I quarrel with nothing you’ve said here. My quarrel was with the air of frustration expressed about the Democratic Party that emerged from these folks right on the eve of the convention, with vague threats about what is to come – right at the moment when the combined force of the “new forces” and the traditional Democratic party (about whom, by the way, I share many of your frustrations) finally seems to be bearing down on victory. I know recrimination can be fun, but let’s at least wait until we lose before wallowing in it.
My point is that the new forces did provide some powerful (and necessary) wind for the moribund old Democratic sails but that without each other we aren’t going anywhere. And here on the eve of that achievement they were talking about getting a new boat? Did Andy Stern really say it would be better for the new forces in some way if Bush won? I hope to hell he was drunk when he said it, because there’s no other excuse. That’s the worst sort of Naderism (and yes, I voted for Nader in 2000).
Re the “entrepreneurs”, there was one quote in the Bai article, in which one of them could think of nothing to say to the “old” tradtional Democrats. That’s a problem, and it’s one they need to address before I’ll take them as seriously as they want to be taken. It’s also part of why Kerry and not Dean is the nominee, and I have all the respect in the world for Dean.
Steve,
These entrepreneurs are funding the traditional base of the party, not running away from it. They’re giving the traditional base its voice back, after having had it silenced by the cubicle wing of the Democratic Party. I think the point is that the traditional base of the party is liberal, while the current leadership of the party is far from it. The entrepreneurs, the bloggers, the Deaniacs, whatever have stirred and are working toward giving the party back to the traditional Democrats.
Why do you think these political entrepreneurs are on the rise? It’s not because of an excess of good ideas coming out of the Party. The appalling slide of the Party toward little more than middle management for the country has spurred these people to action to empower the base. It’s the current leadership who has disconnected themselves from the traditional base, and are endangering the entire party because of it.
And as for Howard Dean, yes he lost. He lost for a number of reasons, not the least of which was an inability to contain the well-timed onslaught of negative coverage right before Iowa. So it goes. But it takes a fully-loaded ocean-liner about six miles from the time it decides it wants to change course to the time it’s on that new course, and I wouldn’t be spouting about successes and failures of Dean just yet, especially given his goals were something akin to a bottom-up change in the entire Democratic Party.
His immediate success is the fact that Democrats are energized and making headway in defeating the Republicans. His immediate success is currently populating the floor of the DNCC in Boston, and populating local and state campaigns all over the country. His long-term success, I’d wager, will be more profound than that.
The Party needs new blood and new leadership. The problem is as I see it the old guard will not give up power so we have to take it. We must run for party offices and build new coalitions to take back our Party !!!
I don’t think the Democratic National Committee or Party HQ is in much danger — but its role must be massively updated, keeping the essentials. For like it or not, politics in this country is still done by geography. Yep, it matters what precinct, ward, State Senate District, Congressional District, County, State and all you live in, and vote in, and thus must devise politics in and aroudn.
Thus while one can like and participate in the blog world, the fact that it is non-geographic is a significant limitation. Likewise, if the inventors of new entities don’t comprehend this, they too will fail to accomplish much.
I’ve also get real reservantions about the seeming absence from the planning groups of any significant representation of racial and ethnic minorities and women. Something that doesn’t seem to have such persons sitting around the planning tables profoundly offends me. It’s the failure to recognize this absence that really offends me.
Folks, folks, did Howard Dean win the nomination? He did not even come close, notwithstanding all the passion of his supporters.
Are these Silicon Valley entrepreneurs funding the movement by themselves? Hell no! They’ve helped provide the means by which the little people can pool their small contributions to the point where it comes close to equaling those of the fat cats. But its the little people who are doing the funding.
Disconnect this network from its base and you will wind up with … Ralph Nader.
The creators of this network deserve the thanks of Democrats everywhere, because they’ve made themselves into a vehicle for them. But a car does not drive itself.
The minute these guys start to try to dictate policy, it becomes a whole new ball game. Especially when they gush on and on about “entrepreneurialism” and admit they have nothing to say to the “traditional base of the Democratic party.” People who call themselves entrepreneurs have sometimes built great things … and sometimes been snake oil salesmen. You get no points from me by talking about your being an entrepreneur. You get points for your results. And they’d better have something to say to the traditional base of the party before they run off to replace it. This is where Howard Dean failed, and it’s where these guys will fail if they repeat his mistake. They haven’t shown me that they fully understand the nature of the beast yet.
Note: I’m advocating keeping the Democratic party, but as a figure head. Something that most people can recognize.
The only thing I’ve seen from the Old Institutions in response to the new, is a lot of jealous power-guarding.
Turn over the power as soon as the New are developed enough because the OG will NEVER want to work with them.
The idea that somehow the progressive movement in America would enhance its prospects by trying to do an end run around the Democratic Party is so deeply crackpot that I scarcely know what to say.
Democrats are infamously disorganized, and suffer thereby — so the answer is to junk the party, and create even greater chaos? This is just unspeakably stupid.
Kos represents, to my mind, a nearly perfect example of what is wrong, not right, in the progressive movement in general, and in too much of the blogging left in particular. He seems to incapable by deepest nature of thinking and behaving strategically, and seems to follow his impulses for sneering and lashing out whereever they may lead.
There are about a thousand reasons for trying to work from within the Democratic Party — not least of which is the clear expectation of the vast majority of American voters that that is one of the two authentically credible parties in the nation.
I ask these cretins who propose this “new approach”, how, exactly, is a candidate espoused only by these new institutions, and not the Democratic Party, going to get elected? Do these idiots imagine that, say, the Democrats are going to fail to put up a candidate if these “new institutions” put up their own candidate? And if, instead, the candidate runs under the aegis of the Democratic Party, how is it that he or she could presume NOT to be involved in the infrastructure and constituencies of the Democratic Party?
I can most certainly see the point of new institutions trying to inject their point of view INTO the Democratic Party — that indeed is only welcome. But to declare the Democratic Party dead or irrelevant is the unmistakable mark of self indulgent purism or spite, and nothing else. Such advocates are detestable, no different in any way from Mr. Narcissism himself, Ralph Stinking Nader.
Truly, the idea of investing all our hopes in the new institutions at the expense of the Democratic Party is not just wrong. It is sheer idiocy and perversity.
Exactly. I got an email from Dean suggesting that all of his supporters go out and become precinct captains. In other words do to the Democrats what the right wing lunatic fringe did to the Repugs–take over from the ground up. The DNC is dead wood. The Party is as good as it’s members. Let’s get thru this election, then refocus our party.
I can’t believe all this perfect-or-nothing talk. We have a damn good chance to win an election and all of a sudden it’s not good enough. So the patient is sick and we want to kill him so he won’t ever get sick again. Perfect or nothing at all. My way or no way at all. Sounds like a bunch of spoiled Republicans appointing judges. Is someone dreaming of some past paradise that I missed along the way? Let’s hear it for Ozzie and Harriet democracy. Ah, those were the days!
If Kerry were elected and the day after his inauguration the entire Supreme Court dropped dead (god forbid!), he would not be able to appoint a single nominee.
What the Bai article points out is that the DP lacks the day-to-day muscle that the Republicans have, and Kerry’s election won’t change that. Who will be the most happy about that? The business-as-usual Dems who will see it as their vindication. See how smart we were to not mention Iraq!
As the independent force tries to emerge within the DP, the Joe Liebermans will try to cut its throat. What the Bai article notes is that there is the potential for a MAJORITARIAN independent party to emerge.
“Calmer, peaceful, refreshed.” By repeating certain things to ourselves our anxiety level about winning in the fall is supposed to come down. Ruy seems to always be calming his readers down with hopeful interpretations of polling data etc. and i have to admit that i come to this site in large part to see if a thoughtful person like ruy is still optimistic about kerry’s chances. But i can’t help but think of Derrida’s statement in Spectres of Marx that “an assertion of hegemony is a crisis of hegemony.” it seems the more we hear repeated that there is “an emerging democratic majority” the more likely that it is not emerging, but threatening not to emerge. When (if) it actually arises it will be so obvious that there will be no anxiety to quell about its arrival. The repetition of hopeful mantras (as ruy advocated at the end of his post) is a kind of nervous garlic waving to keep the vampires of doubt away.
Not quite. The party is hurting – very badly. Like it or not Clinton came into power in 1992 with the Presidency, the House and the Senate – and left it in 2000 with none of the three. And his hand-picked DNC chair, McAuliffe, has to say it mildly, disappointed a lot of the faithful. Disastrous 2002 campaign, boring speaker, embarrassing financail ties, etc.
Questionable tactics for 2004 – early primaries? Gee thanks for cutting the coverage.
Never go negative? And that hasn’t worked for the Republicans? etc.
In fact his failure as leader of the DNC is what is really driving the other organizations. People with money just don’t want to invest in a loser. And McAuliffe is just not doing much with the cash.
The party is hurting – but killing Kerry is certainly not going to help. But a coup at the DNC just might.