Bucking her party’s establishment, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D–Hawaii, has resigned from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and formally endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders, D–Vermont, for president.
“As elections continue across the country, the American people are faced with a clear choice,” Gabbard said in a Feb. 28 news release. “We can elect a president who will lead us into more interventionist wars of regime change, or we can elect a president who will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. With this clear choice in mind, today I am resigning as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can strongly support Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.”
Gabbard’s endorsement comes at a time when most pundits are predicting that Hillary Clinton will, in fact, be the Democratic presidential nominee. Indeed, one Washington Post columnist struggled with the endorsement at first, until she remembered Gabbard’s unconventional background and ideology (though a hawk on the fight against ISIS, Gabbard–a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard and Iraq War veteran–has strongly criticized military intervention elsewhere throughout the world).
“It’s a move that makes little sense on the surface–especially coming mere hours after Hillary Clinton’s shellacking of Sanders in South Carolina’s primary,” Amber Phillips wrote in the Feb. 28 Post. “But digging deeper into Gabbard’s unconventional and sometimes combative approach to politics, her alliance with Sanders starts to add up. Like the man she’s endorsing for president, Gabbard is a wildcard who is willing to put her future with the Democratic Party on the line to speak out against it.”
Watch video of Gabbard’s announcement below:
Photo courtesy Rep. Gabbard’s office
Comments
comments