Sanders Must Offer Tulsi Gabbard The VP Slot. Now!

February 29, 2016

Tulsi Gabbard, a U.S. Congress representative from Hawaii, stepped down as a vice chair of the Democrat National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders. In the video below the fold she explains her reasoning. It is Clinton's militarism in foreign policies that makes her take the other side.

Described as "libertarian-leaning progressive" the woman is smart, pretty and speaks well. She is also a former officer in the U.S. military with combat experience and an interest in foreign policy.

Politically her endorsement is manna from heaven for Sanders.

Sanders should IMMEDIATELY offer her the Vice-President slot. Her task in the campaign is to stand in on all foreign policy issues. Sanders then can continue to focus on inequality in the United States.

Hillary Clinton would have no chance to beat that team. Unlike the neoconned Clinton, a Sanders/Gabbard ticket can attract young voters which will be needed to beat Trump. If Clinton runs against Trump the large and growing "anything but Clinton" crowd would likely let her loose.

Someone tell Sanders that he better act fast to announce her nomination before Clinton collects more states and takes away the buzz that the Sanders campaign urgently needs.

Posted by b on February 29, 2016 at 19:41 UTC | Permalink

Comments

I’m not taking a stand on the Tulsi Gabbard issue per se, I just want to point out to the non-Americans here that US presidential candidates do not pick running mates until/unless they’ve already won the nomination (or locked it up mathematically). It simply isn’t done.
BTW, Bernie’s down but not out. The vast majority of (non-super) delegates in the Dem primary are still up for grabs. Don’t believe the pro-Hillary spin coming from the establishment press. The fat lady ain’t sang yet! There’s a chance this could go all the way to the convention, as occurred in 2008.

Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Mar 4 2016 13:28 utc | 101

@ Seamus Padraig | Mar 4, 2016 8:28:44 AM | 101
If it hasn’t been pointed out already that most of the states ‘won’ by Madam Clinton are lost to Democrats in the general election where their votes actually (don’t directly) count – rather a candidates set of electors with winner (most votes in a state) takes all.
Although those earned delegates will count for the election of the candidate for the party’s nomination, they will not help the party to win the general election in any way due to the workings of the Electoral College system in place. Sometimes a good thing – sometimes not.
This Electoral College made sense once when the Republic was young and communications and transportation difficult. Not so much once the telegraph and railroads were developed and not at all with today’s facilities.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Mar 4 2016 14:15 utc | 102

Please Bernie make this announcement NOW and ride the wave all the way to the White House: Bernie Sanders / Tulsi Gabbard ticket for the WIN!!! (a political revolution sets the precedent for an early announcement, defying conventional establishment timeframes is acceptable under present circumstances) Just saying 🙂

Posted by: Stuart Bennett | Mar 15 2016 3:54 utc | 103

alex morphesis, a commenter at nakedcapitalism.com, suggests another smart move by Sanders (link):

Bernie should suggest the remaining 5 presidential candidates start debating together as both parties wont be decided until june…el donaldo may balk and suggest just he, billary and the bern debate…billary will refuse leaving el donaldo and the bern…
So…if billary refuses to debate just the bern(which she will), he can let her ego push her out of the election…the cable nets will see ratings go thru the roof and the bern gets to be presidential on a stage the mncorp ad media will be happy with…

Will Bernie fail to seize another opportunity to improve his chances?

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 28 2016 14:01 utc | 104

@104 jr
I don’t follow the argument about the ‘debates’ … does anyone actually watch them? I think the people who do ‘pay attention’ to them just wait for the corporate media to tell them who ‘won’.
But check out Tulsi’s new video and Robert Parry’s paen to her as Commander in Chief at consortiumnews.com.
Tulsi tips her hand with ‘My name is Tulsi Gabbard and I support Bernie Sanders’ at the end: her name comes first. But then Bernie pop does up and says he approves this message.
Tulsi gets to imply that (s)he’d cut back the MIC and Bernie gets to say, ‘she said that, not me!’ And of course Tulsi is a woman – the first woman vice president to Hillary’s first prez? with a 74 year old prez.
I don’t think there’s much difference among the three. Tulsi is beginning to look pretty terrifying as the front-woman for a very, very slick military machine. But I would be happy to see Hillary defeated. Our present cycle began with a Clinton winning and maybe it will end with a Clinton losing.
Our win would come, according to me, when
1. the Bernie(/Tulsi) ticket wins the votes and the dnc gives the nomination to Hillary anyway, and then
2. all those who’ve felt the Bern but got burned by the dnc write in Bernie,
3. together everyone else who just cannot vote for Hillary or Donald (or Ted) writes in someone else they actually would like to see as president,
4. producing a ‘spoiled ballot’ total that exceeds that of the ‘winning’ candidate.
Then, like the Syrians, we will realize that we can do it ourselves, and if we pursue our enemies at that point we can drive them from our civic temple and effect the real changes we need to, if we are to meet the challenges along the ecological, economic, and imperial dimensions in this the so-called 21st Century.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 29 2016 0:53 utc | 105

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