Tulsi in Iowa, impresses many.

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Gabbard is not going to win the primary because no congressman/woman will win in many decades/have won in many decades. You have to be a Gov/Senator. And she is not progressive enough. She needs 15 off years & a record to match it.

Having said that, the comments in this thread are flat out retarded. Hillary Clinton supported the Iraq War which killed millions & she opposed gay marriage her entire life, only to support it in 2013, before her Presidential run (1-2 years before it). She supported tough capital punishments, she supported homophobic laws like DOMA & her VP pick was a notorious anti-choice guy in Tim kaine. Kaine would be the most anti-abortion Dem President in many decades.

So the hatred on Gabbard is stupid at best. Gabbard came from a Conservative Republican family, opposed Gay Marriage etc but turned in 2006/07 odd after visiting the Middle East. She has introduced several bills for the gay community since then, in Congress & in the Hawaii Legislature. By this standard, Obama, Biden all opposed gay marriages in 2008 as well. And Gabbard has used the term "Radical Islamic Territorist"but has also went & has spoken in Islamic conferences, has served in Iraq, visited Syria. I don't like hobnobbing with Assad but there is nothing to say she is "Islamophobic"

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What's with all the hate? She is one of my favorite politicians.

Well, she has railed against "homosexual extremists" on multiple occasions so I don't trust her "evolution" on that issue.

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Against civil unions? Really? Even Dubya supported those in 2004!

She has some problematic stances on foreign policy. Such as constant Assad apologism and buying into conspiracies about how he never used chemical weapons and it was a false flag.

And the cult around her is annoying. As if she's some martyr who got turned into stone by Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Medusa gaze just because she endorsed Bernie and VOLUNTARILY resigned from the DNC.

Gabbard supported Same Sex Marriage in 2012. Hillary Clinton supported in 2013. That is certainly not unusual especially if you grow up in a conservative family. Gabbard changed after travelling the word & the Middle East. Gabbard got support from Bernie folks because she was on a suicide mission & supported Bernie at a time when Bernie's campaign was doomed, when Bernie seemed seemed destined to fail. It was after SC when Bernie lost SC by 40-50% after losing Nevada & Iowa. The Super Tuesdays were loaded with Southern states which Bernie was expected to lose big. The only state he was supposed to win was Vermont & everything else was tough. Sanders' campaign was supposed to end in Super Tuesday.

Gabbard was threatened by Clinton campaign about her political future & she put everything on the line against a very likely President Clinton (at that point of time which seemed likely) & risked her whole political career. She was moderate but had a good record on Environmental issues, opposed TPP & has since then moved left & supports Medicare-for-all, 15$ Minimum Wage, Glass Steagal, legalizing marijuana.

Having said that she is an obscure Congresswomen. No member of the House has won the Presidency in a long while & no1 will in the next few decades. She has to get to the Senate first & she needs a long progressive record. She is only 35 odd & I think she will be a strong candidate in 2028. The support she gets from Bernie folks is cause you support people who were there with you when you were at your worst.

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My biggest issue with her is her trip to Syria and how she handled the aftermath. She met with a murderous dictator without telling anyone and then lied about how the trip was funded. And before anyone says otherwise, its fine for the secretary of state to visit murderous dictators because they're the presidents top diplomat. Its not fine if a congressperson with no job in the administration does it.

For me, it's not so much that she met with him as it is the fact that she came back and regurgitated his propaganda.  She was obviously only allowed to meet with Assad-approved Syrians while there, and then she comes back and says something like "I talked to the Syrian people, and all of them told me that there's no real difference between the rebel groups and they're all terrorists."  (Not an exact quote, but that was the gist of it.)  Does she even realize that meeting only with people in territory held by Assad is going to produce a skewed picture, or is she that gullible?

Cognitive dissonance. Like most in these forums. You selectively take information which justifies your pre-held notions. It was stupid, meaningless & naive.

I do understand her point about regime change & Hillary's terrible hawkish policies which kills millions but that doesn't mean Assad is the good here. Being better than ISIS or reasonably secular is not good enough. The whole Syria fiasco will take her 10 years to erase. She needs to go to Senate when Hirono retires & needs to build a progressive resume for 10 years to be taken as a serious contender.

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That 1980s letter he signed just mentioned husband and wife at a time when gay marriage wasn't an issue, so I don't think it really can be taken as opposition to gay marriage. And in 2006, leaving it to the states was the view of most who supported SSM since Congress was still trying to pass a constitutional amendment to ban it.

As I said, he was never explicitly for gay marriage until 2009, yet people act as if he was a hero about this.

If he was then in the 1980s he would have put it at the forefront. Sanders got people to believe a lot about him that simply isn't true.

If he can do it Tulsi can. The only difference is Tulsi is actually anti-establishment unlike Sanders. Sanders was treated with kid's gloves in 2016. Tulsi will not be.

I pray if she does run she beats the media.

I know you are a troll. But  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAFlQ6fU4GM - This is Sanders fighting an attack on gay soldiers by a homphobic Republican Congressman. This is 1995.

Fast Forward to 1996. He was one of the few to vote against DOMA, a homophobic bi-partisan legislation supported by Democrats & Republicans & the Clintons.

And he has taken part in gay parades since the 80s. It is true that there is nothing to say that he supported SSM in the 90s or early 2000s but his record is fairly stellar. He came out for SSM earlier than most, including Clinton (who was the one of the last), voted the right way for Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Sanders  has generally been an ally for the gay community, atleast since the 90s even if he hasn't endorsed SSM back then.

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"Tulsi Gabbard supported gay marriage before Hillary Clinton" is an inane and pointless comparison. In 2012 Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Secretaries of State by tradition do not speak on domestic or local issues, since they are irrelevant to their job, and can be seen as pushing an agenda which is not supposed to be what the office does. Hillary didn't even speak at the 2012 DNC. Neither did John Kerry in 2016, despite being a former nominee and the last Democratic nominee before the then sitting President. If Hillary had stayed in the Senate, it's a no brainer as to if she would've endorsed gay marriage in 2012, if not sooner.

It's a pointless comparison anyway, because Hillary has said she won't run in 2020. So Tulsi Gabbard, if she runs (which I doubt) should not be compared to Hillary Clinton on this, but rather the other Democrats running.

The point is it is fairly hypocritical for Clinton supporters to blast her on this issue when they supported Clinton on this issue without questions (with her opposition to SSM till 2013 & support for the homophobic DOMA). Gabbard was 29 or 30 when she supported SSM, in 2012. She was brought up in a homophobic household, she went to the Middle East & her views changed. She has since been a part of multiple pro-gay legislation in the House. Clinton got the approval of the HRC, multiple gay organizations.

If past actions are a disqualifier then - 

Clinton should be disqualified for the Iraq War which killed millions
Joe Biden should be disqualified for the Iraq War which killed millions.
Tim Kaine should not be a VP Candidate because of his anti-abortion history.

This whole talk of Gabbard is a way to "punish her" for supporting Sanders. Howard Dean & Neera Tanden have talking funding a primary against Gabbard. This is not about  Gabbard being the 2020 Nominee. She is atleast 10-12 years away if ever & Sanders/Warren/Merkley will be the progressive candidate. This is about punishing people for supporting Sanders (like Perez is doing at the DNC).

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"Tulsi Gabbard supported gay marriage before Hillary Clinton" is an inane and pointless comparison. In 2012 Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Secretaries of State by tradition do not speak on domestic or local issues, since they are irrelevant to their job, and can be seen as pushing an agenda which is not supposed to be what the office does. Hillary didn't even speak at the 2012 DNC. Neither did John Kerry in 2016, despite being a former nominee and the last Democratic nominee before the then sitting President. If Hillary had stayed in the Senate, it's a no brainer as to if she would've endorsed gay marriage in 2012, if not sooner.

It's a pointless comparison anyway, because Hillary has said she won't run in 2020. So Tulsi Gabbard, if she runs (which I doubt) should not be compared to Hillary Clinton on this, but rather the other Democrats running.

The point is it is fairly hypocritical for Clinton supporters to blast her on this issue when they supported Clinton on this issue without questions (with her opposition to SSM till 2013 & support for the homophobic DOMA). Gabbard was 29 or 30 when she supported SSM, in 2012. She was brought up in a homophobic household, she went to the Middle East & her views changed. She has since been a part of multiple pro-gay legislation in the House. Clinton got the approval of the HRC, multiple gay organizations.

If past actions are a disqualifier then - 

Clinton should be disqualified for the Iraq War which killed millions
Joe Biden should be disqualified for the Iraq War which killed millions.
Tim Kaine should not be a VP Candidate because of his anti-abortion history.

This whole talk of Gabbard is a way to "punish her" for supporting Sanders. Howard Dean & Neera Tanden have talking funding a primary against Gabbard. This is not about  Gabbard being the 2020 Nominee. She is atleast 10-12 years away if ever & Sanders/Warren/Merkley will be the progressive candidate. This is about punishing people for supporting Sanders (like Perez is doing at the DNC).

If that's the reason then why is no one talking about primarying Keith Ellison or Jeff Merkeley?

Ellison & Merkley were asking Bernie to give up when he was negotiating with the Clinton campaign. They are as establishment as they get while staying a progressive populist. Clinton supported Perez behind close doors & Merkley doesn't even have a spot in the Senate Leadership. So they won't get major help.

But Gabbard toucher a raw nerve. She went hard against Clinton when Bernie was going soft on her foreign policy blunders. She went & said the Clinton campaign intimidates & threatens people, as they did with her. And Wikileaks showed these emails as well. She refused to immediate endorse Clinton, continued criticizing her for foreign policy blunders.

They also didn't even let Nina Turner speak at the Convention. Everyone knows, from Wikileaks & otherwise that Clintons often go after dissidents & purge them from the party. Why on earth are Neera Tanden & Howard Dean asking for a primary against when they are okay with Iraq War supporters or corrupt people like Menendez. Anyways, to say one if not ready to support Gabbard for President is a fair point, but the hatred, smear & slander campaign against is ridiculous.