The Gift of Gabbard

When CNN's promotional ads for the next Democratic presidential debate on March 15 said it was "down to two" candidates, it became obvious that Tulsi Gabbard became in 2020 what Martin O'Malley became in 2016 - the Democratic presidential candidate no one wants to talk about unless the talk turns comical.

Gabbard says that she's continuing her long-shot run for the Presidency because she says she has "an opportunity to speak to Americans every single day about the sea change we need in our foreign policy," such as our military spending. Uh, don't we have Bernie Sanders for that? In fact, Sanders' positions on both domestic and foreign policy have made her redundant.  And while she doesn't have Joe Biden's unfortunate ability to make gaffes, her favorable comments about Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and her past comments about gay marriage more than equal every stupid thing Biden has said.  She mostly exists as a candidate for the entertainment value.

The difference between Gabbard and O'Malley, though, mostly comes down to Gabbard being less grounded in reality.  I have long had this theory that, when the Russians released e-mails from the Democratic National Committee through Wikileaks, O'Malley intercepted an e-mail from Debbie Wasserman Schultz to John Podesta that said Martin was the most insufferable boor in the entire Democratic Party and that everyone hated him.  And so, with tears in his eyes, O'Malley realized right then and there that he had no chance of winning the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.  But at least O'Malley isn't oblivious to the truth of what people think of him.  By contrast, I think Tulsi Gabbard is utterly clueless about how people view her.  Even though Hillary Clinton reportedly said that the Russians were "grooming" Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to take enough votes away from the Democratic nominee to help Trump win a second term, even though the Democratic National Committee has made it impossible for her to qualify for the primary debates, and even though progressives have completely abandoned her for Sanders, she remains under this delusion that she actually matters.

As with other would-be Presidents who will never occupy the White House, a cult following has developed around Gabbard.  In a way, that's rather nice; she still has a small cadre of people who believe in her and still think she can be President. It's also sort of sad.

Ask someone who knows from personal experience of having supported Martin O'Malley. :-(