Tulsi2020 Campaign Review
The U.S. combat soldier smeared as a ‘Russian asset’ took on the establishment and survived. Was her campaign effective?
Introduction
First some background. Tulsi is a lifelong Democrat and an experienced political animal with keen instincts. She has often been underestimated and has overperformed expectations during most of her political campaigns.
Tulsi’s political successes have often come from following her gut and a lot of luck. Instinctively knowing what to say, when to say it, and where to play politically had served her well. Until now.
Before 2016, Tulsi Gabbard was a rising star in the Democratic Party. Her resume was golden and if she played ball with the ‘right people’ and supported the ‘right candidates’, she could have had a long lucrative career in national politics. She didn’t. In 2016 she witnessed the corruption of the DNC and the rigging of the Primary to support Hillary. Out of principle, Tulsi resigned as Vice-Chair of the DNC to endorse and support Senator Bernie Sanders, who later lost the Democratic Party nomination to Hillary Clinton.
Thus began the coordinated effort to ruin Tulsi’s political career.
Tulsi’s Presidential campaign confused and confounded professional and amateur political operatives from the very start. That is not a bad thing. Tulsi had no political path in the well-trodden Corporate Democrat, DNC, media and donor Machine. She had to go outside and build a constituency from scratch.
The deck was always stacked against her in 2020. She had formidable, well entrenched, influential, wealthy, and powerful political enemies. It’s a long list, but some of these included the Democratic Party establishment, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the mainstream (corporate) media, the donor class, the so-called Dem Coalition, the Rick Wilson, Joy Reid, Neera Tanden, Hillary Clinton types and many, many, more.
The Campaign
Despite all odds, or maybe because of them, Tulsi announced her candidacy for President. Under-funded, little national name recognition, and assaulted from all sides, Tulsi faced immediate and unrelating attacks, smears, media blackouts, and amplified lies about her loyalties, political positions, religious beliefs.
Smears — ‘Russian Asset’, ‘Assad Apologist’, ‘Republican plant’ and more were successfully deployed against her to frame her narrative for many Democrats trained to believe Clinton, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and other well-known political and media operatives and outlets.
The Twitter trolls manipulated by well organized and professional troll/bot farms even spent time and effort criticizing Tulsi’s hair or fashion choices. Seriously, they effectively chanted ‘Is she is wearing white again’? thousands of times on social media like that was a meaningful or normal critique of a Presidential candidate.
The instinctive reflex by many to casually repeat baseless lies about Tulsi, repeat CIA talking points, use red-baiting, Russia-baiting, and to support the less overt sexist, racist ad hominem attacks were instructive.
Professional narrative managers were directing the anti-Tulsi campaign out of fear. While claiming she was irrelevant, they spent every day attacking her.
They were afraid her message would resonate, breakthrough and feared that their corporate and political bosses would lose power, money, and influence as a result.
You don’t normally spend that kind of effort attacking a candidate polling at 1% nationally. In this case, they threw everything they had at Tulsi and she was still standing. That is real #resitance.
Some Legitimate Criticisms
Tulsi’s campaign made strategic and communication mistakes that contributed to the dismissive attitude and animosity some people felt toward her candidacy.
The campaign had spent a year in New Hampshire and won only 3% in that primary. After that devastating result, the campaign did become effectively irrelevant and had no path to the nomination. That would have been the right time for the campaign to learn the hard lessons and pivot to a more effective strategy focused on Democratic voters. They didn’t.
If Tulsi’s campaign had ‘checked the right boxes’ early on and supported Universal Basic Income (UBI) earlier, supported Medicare for All (M4A) and the Green New Deal (GND) and other progressive policies, she may have been able to siphon off supporters (with her anti-war message included) from Yang, Sanders, and Warren and gotten more financial support, more volunteers, more social media advocates, and most importantly more votes.
It is said that politics is a game of addition, not subtraction
Instead, the campaign’s appeal to only a small segment of Democratic voters, while focusing more on Independents, Libertarians, and conservatives, won her very little support among the broad left Democratic base.
Tulsi’s frequent appearances on FOX programs made Democratic Party loyalists suspicious, angry, and more susceptible to manipulation by shadowy operatives attacking Tulsi to protect their pro-war, pro-corporate agendas.
Is Tulsi Even a Real Democrat?
Some people may view these campaign decisions not as mistakes at all, but reflective of Tulsi’s true political positions. In that case, she would have made a more compelling choice for the general election, where the battle lines will be drawn over winning Trump supporters. You don’t do that by insulting them all the time.
However, an objective review of Tulsi’s political record proves that she is still much more aligned with the Democrats, than the Right. She is a life-long Democrat and has chosen not to run as a third-party candidate. She fulfilled her pledge to support whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2020.
A look at her Local, State and Congressional record over the years shows that she most often supports Democratic Party positions regularly.
She may not be a typical Democratic, she may not play by conventional rules, she may even have an occasional unusual vote, but ideologically, Tulsi’s experience and her long record is overwhelmingly in line with the Democratic Party and the political priorities of the broad left.
New Media Strategy
Because of the efforts ruin her political career and to strangle her campaign, Tulsi had to become an insurgent campaigner and that meant fighting back against the traditional media, which has become thoroughly infiltrated by the Intel community, corporate interests, and Clinton sycophants.
To break through the media blackout and smears, she turned to online influencers to get her message out and build support. Tulsi effectively utilized YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and podcasts as best she could. However, in doing so, she may have become overly dependent on some of these outlets and even influenced by some prolific Twitter posters or YouTubers who have obviously little or no real-world political experience or expertise.
Some went all-in for Tulsi and enjoyed the clicks and views it gave them while promoting their monetized personal brands.
Online Influencers and Bad Advice?
Fact — Tulsi is a combat veteran, a woman, and a person color. Some prolific online personality types, who appeared to speak for the campaign, offered very poor advice and what I consider to be political malpractice on this issue.
In this example of identity politics (IDPOL), these online ‘supporters’ railed against the use of IDPOL, even when Tulsi was the last female and person of color standing.
There are many examples of this kind of bad advice cluttering Tulsi’s online narrative.
In this case, Tulsi’s identity is what distinguished her and made her unique. Example — The only Delegates she won were from American Somoa where she had no on-the-ground campaign presence. She won those because she is ‘one of them’ having been born on the Islands. If she had focused more on her unique personal distinctions she might have performed better in vote totals.
It is my opinion that IDPOL should be used when appropriate to distinguish a candidate and to draw a contrast with others. The objective is to win and using IDPOL to win political power is legitimate and useful. Not using it more often and more effectively was a mistake.
In the absence of an apparent professional campaign staff, a campaign manager, a strong communications team, and a policy shop, Tulsi may have unconsciously tried to placate her primary access to online media and missed critical campaign opportunities.
I admit to not knowing who most of these online personalities were before Tulsi’s campaign. I enjoyed many of the interviews as I got to know Tulsi 2020.
Among other things, I am a peace activist and liked hearing Tulsi online challenge the often repeated, but poorly sourced, Russia narrative that was being promulgated 24/7 on cable news. I enjoyed hearing Tulsi challenge (even in a limited way) U.S. foreign policy, I liked her counter-punches to the corporate Democratic establishment, and especially Hillary Clinton and calling out Clinton’s pro-war record that has cost us so much and caused so much death, devastation, and long-term damage to U.S. national interests.
Tulsi had Limited Media Options.
Most corporate media, like the cable news channels, either refused to book Tulsi or used her appearances to smear her and repeat baseless attacks. In response, FOX was eager to invite her on to attack the Democrats.
While it is understandable that Tulsi would take mass media appearances where ever she could, her regular appearances on FOX alienated the very democratic voters she needed to win in a Democratic primary contest. Not only that, but she was not appearing on FOX ‘straight news’ programs with hosts like Shepard Smith or Mike Wallace who are real journalists.
Instead, Tulsi was booked on The Laura Ingram Show or The Tucker Carlson Show. These are not news programs, they are opinion shows and the hosts are white nationalists and white supremacists. They use dog-whistle neo-nazi and fascist-like messages to appeal to their extremist audiences. They used Tulsi’s need for mass media to triangulate their own message and appear to be more populist, bipartisan and mainstream than they really are.
Tulsi’s frequent appearances on these right-wing FOX shows was a communications blunder.
I understand Tulsi’s message of unity and reaching across-the-aisle (queue the mom’s toffee story) motivation, but she not only alienated the Democratic base, who she needed to win, she also became associated with the worst ideological segment of American society. She compounded this gross error even further by widely distributing videos of herself being interviewed by these people to her supporters and the Democratic base.
Limited Financial Resources
Tulsi operated a mean and lean campaign — staying in less expensive hotels, flying commercial, eating at home, little data analytics investment, no brick-and-mortar national headquarters, very little paid staff and instead she relied on mostly volunteers and surrounded herself with cyber-supporters and family.
The limited resources was a serious constraint. Tulsi did have a professional-looking online presence and utilized ActBlue to try to generate the desperately needed campaign funds. Her principled pledge to not take any PAC money meant even fewer donations from traditional donors. A review of her FEC reports shows an approximately $1 million a month campaign fund-raising and burn rate which is very lean for a national Presidential campaign.
It is my opinion that PAC money is neither good or bad in and of itself. It is what PAC and who are the funders that should matter. A labor PAC, for example, is acceptable in my mind while a Big-Parma PAC is not. A PAC funded by pro-war Lockheed Martin is not comparable to a PAC funded by Peace-Now.
Tulsi’s ability to raise money directly online circumvented the donor class and the establishment efforts to strangle her campaign by choking off donations. She made good progress in building up her online donations and donor lists. This could be valuable in future efforts. It just was not enough in this cycle to allow for the kind of campaigning and media strategy the moment required.
Campaign Strategy
Like I stated earlier, Tulsi’s message resonated with me. I liked her message of peace, unity and Aloha. But, that message was hard to translate into a cohesive campaign strategy, given the many constraints on the campaign.
Politics is a funny business. Purists don’t make the best politicians. Doing the ‘right thing’ is sometimes a bad campaign strategy.
What was the goal of this campaign? An obvious answer for a typical campaign would be “to win” the Democratic nomination for President. However, things are not always as they appear. That may have been a wish, a hope maybe, but a realistic goal given all the opposition and limitations? Winning the nomination would be a long-shot. Tulsi had beat the odd’s before in her political campaigns, so maybe she was hoping for some of that magic and some lucky breaks to get her there?
Unfortunately, Hope is not a strategy
Even a superficial look at the strategy exposes serious flaws. This was a Democratic primary race, which means to “win” you need more Democratic Party votes than everyone else. Yet Tulsi’s campaign alienated many Democratic voters for reasons already explained.
Instead, the campaign focused on anti-war Democrats, moderate Republicans and Libertarians. The ‘unity’ message seemed to be a call for bi-partisanship with a strong appeal to non-Democrats.
At Tulsi’s Townhalls she would often ask for a show of hands …Who here is a Democrat? …Who is a Republican? …Who is a Libertarian? …and so on.
The Democrats were often less than a third of the room. Her strong appeal to the Ron Paul independents was evident. But if she wanted to win the Democratic nomination, that strategy was strange. The conversion rate of people in another party registering to vote in a Democratic primary is very low, which is why no professional campaign strategist would ever suggest it as a winning strategy or even a campaign focus.
If the goal was to win the Democratic Party nomination, the campaign strategy was flawed and it failed miserably.
If you want to win voters in a Democratic primary, you need to focus on Democratic voters.
So, what was a more realistic goal? It could have been to just survive. To stand tall against all odds — against the barrage of incoming from Hillary, the DNC, the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), the Main Stream Media (MSM) the Intel community, and all their wealthy and powerful allies.
Maybe the goal was to plant seeds for the future. Tulsi may have started with little name recognition, but that has now increased. She now has a national brand and she has an independent fundraising mechanism in place.
At the age of 38, Tulsi could be in politics for 30 to 40 more years — long after Tom Perez, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and many of today’s political ‘leaders’ have left the scene. This election cycle could be the initial ‘priming of the pump’ for many more campaigns to follow.
Another possible goal could have been political leverage. By running, she now has a much greater chance to be chosen for a position in the next Administration. Granted, her poor showing doesn’t buy her much leverage, but she may still end up in an appointed position somewhere until the next opportunity arises.
In politics, the alliances are always shifting. Yesterday's enemies can become tomorrows allies and vice-versa.
What is Next?
Who knows? Does Tulsi even know? She is leaving her seat in Congress. Hillary’s surrogates have been pouring money into that race to try to ensure Tulsi’s replacement wins big. Unless things change, Tulsi will be out of office in January 2021
She could choose to run for Senate or Governor if and when the opportunity presents itself. Her name ID is up and she can perhaps raise enough money for a Senatorial campaign in a small state like Hawaii. To win a seat in the Senate, one of the current Senators would need to leave their existing position and Tulsi would need to clear the field of strong opponents.
Here is where Tulsi’s bizarre support of Joe Biden comes in.
Joe Biden is on record as supporting the very “Regime-Change Wars” Tulsi just spent a year campaigning against. Why would she endorse Biden?
There is a lot of gossip and speculation on this point and I do not mean to add to the political drama, but should Biden appoint a Hawaiian Senator to a position in his Administration then an open seat becomes available. The Governor would appoint someone (deals to be worked out?) and then a special election would take place.
Biden is also on record as wanting an Administration that ‘looks like America’, so could Tulsi be appointed to a position in a Biden administration? I do not think she would be on the shortlist for VP or Secretary of State, but some other cabinet-level or non-cabinet level positions such as U.S. Representative to the United Nations, or even a high-level Ambassador position might be a soft place to land. She would serve the President while gaining experience and polishing her resume even further.
I will not attempt to get into the Sanders and Tulsi rumors and dramas, except to say that while Sanders’s message is dominating the Democratic base, his candidacy is considered by most to be a very long-shot.
An experienced and practical politician would weigh the odds and place a bet on the most likely Presidential candidate.
It is possible that Tulsi just chooses to cash in on her brand and go commercial. Lifestyle type podcasts and monetized YouTube videos, the female Joe Rogan, Apple downloads, write a book , get a seat on The View or a show on Fox.
There is money to be made.
What Tulsi does next will be very very telling. Her endorsement of Biden split some of her most ardent supporters. Of course, there are still people crushing on her online who would follow her into commercial infotainment success.
For those of us who were attracted to Tulsi’s campaign not because she surfed, or her hair, or her workout video’s, or snow boarding, but specifically for her courage, her strength to challenge the elite and her message of respect, diplomacy over war, and a less partisan, more united America — we are hoping she stays in the political arena.
Her unique voice is needed now and long into the future.
