Tulsi, Hillary and…the Russians?
By: Reed Galen
Tags: 2020 Presidential Race, Hillary Clinton, Tulsi Gabbard, Russian Hacking, Politics

By Reed Galen

Is Tulsi Gabbard an asset of the Russian foreign intelligence service? No one knows, and frankly it doesn’t matter. In the pantheon of presidential candidates there are winners, also-rans and never-gonna-bes. Gabbard fits firmly into the third category.

Which is why it all the more fascinating, frustrating and befuddling why we’re now a week into the Tulsi and Hillary show. As a quick recap, during an interview last week, former Secretary of State Clinton announced she believes Gabbard is a Russian agent, is their “favorite” among the Democratic field, and likely to mount an independent presidential bid at the behest of the GOP and Donald Trump next year simply to play spoiler.

Not to be outdone, Representative Gabbard (D-Hawaii) called Clinton “the queen of warmongers” among other things. Clinton did not take kindly to such accusations and continued the argument and then promptly dared her to jump into the Democratic primary contest.

Why, why, why, 1000 times why is this happening? Why did Secretary Clinton feel the need to, once again, needlessly insert herself into a situation? What political economics did she derive from taking on someone who has the same chance of being the Democratic nominee as I do?

Clinton’s invocation of Gabbard propelled a marginal candidate into the middle of the Democratic primary fight into the center of the media and political maelstrom that is presidential politics.

These are the kinds of events that small, underfunded campaigns dream of! Without having to spend a penny on advertising or a minute of the candidate’s time, Secretary Clinton breathed life into Gabbard’s quixotic bid for the Democratic nomination and ensured a noisy fraction of voters (on both the left and the right) that the congresswoman from Hawaii was worth spending a click on.

When Gabbard counter-attacked, Clinton did what Clintons do: Leave no assault un-responded to. In this case, as in so many cases before, discretion would have been the much better part of valor. Rather Clinton’s camp doubled-down: “If the nesting-doll fits.”

You can’t make this stuff up. We don’t know that Gabbard is a tool of the Russians. Her public statements about Syria and other issues of the day have revealed her to be a kook with little-to-no support. As Vox and others have reported, Gabbard has received a disproportionate amount of social and online attention during and after debates, some of which may be attributable to Red Bots in St. Petersburg.

To what end, though? Even if Rep. Gabbard generates (organically or not) attention on her behalf during debates, it has not, and will not, translate into electoral support in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.

Clinton’s desire to impugn Gabbard feels like one more opportunity to convince herself that she didn’t really lose to Donald Trump, but that the Russians stole it from her, and are trying to do it again. Retrieving these political zombies, though, only has one true beneficiary: The President of the United States. Republicans in this country, even those who dislike Trump, dislike Clinton far more. She serves as the lodestone for their distrust of Democrats and career politicians.

The Russians are bad actors. They have been so since 1917. They are not going to change. However, if we know that they are meddling in our elections, political leaders like Hillary Clinton should know better than to invoke that boogeyman willy-nilly. It’s exactly what the Kremlin wants: the best active measures are those your opponents willingly amplify.

Having been part of daily American life for nearly three decades, I understand how difficult it must be for Secretary Clinton to simply fade into the background. But rather than taking a Bush or Obama-like position of making statements when necessary, at the time and place of their choosing, Mrs. Clinton simply won’t go away: whether it is yet another book deal or a stage show with former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton is a magnet for so much of what Americans want to be rid of: The politics of yesterday, people who feel they’re somehow owed wealth, status and power, and those who will not see that their time has passed. Next time, don’t do the podcast interview. If someone asks you a question about 2016, take some personal responsibility for the loss.

Neither Tulsi Gabbard nor Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump next year. This dustup does not help anyone that might defeat the president. There’s an old adage, maybe one a few more of us should take to heart: Just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you should.

Reed Galen is an independent political consultant. You can follow him on Twitter @ReedGalen.