Will Tulsi and Bernie run?

Back in 2016, Representative Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic nominee. She was at the time the Vice-chair of the DNC and resigned in order to eliminate any possibility of conflict of interest during the primary election.

By then I had already researched Bernie Sanders, and decided to start researching Representative Gabbard. Who was she? Was she someone who could take the torch from Bernie? What were her real intentions? Was she just another power-hungry politician? After my research I found one more person I could fully support. A person with integrity, courage, and an impeccable willingness to serve her fellow Americans.

Tulsi campaigned for Bernie, and even after it was clear the Sanders was not going to have enough delegates to become the Democratic presidential nominee, Tulsi did not change her message, and she pushed all the way to the end, in one of the most heartfelt nominations I have ever heard.

Fast forward to the presidential race of 2020. Why are these two allies running “against” each other? Wouldn’t they fracture the progressive vote and limit the chances of any of the two becoming the presidential nominee for the Democratic party?

If there is anything I have learned in the past couple of years, is that both Bernie and Tulsi are thoughtful, honest and intelligent. From the moment Bernie lost the primary, I joined a large number of people who also saw in Tulsi the person that could better heal the wounds of a divided America.

I have commented in many occasions to people concerned that the progressive vote could fracture, that Tulsi and Sanders would not make us choose, that one would endorse the other, and together they would win the nomination.

The plan was simple. Demonstrate that there was enough support for Tulsi. So massive, that Sanders could consider endorsing Tulsi because he saw her as the best candidate to get elected President of the United States.

But what would having them both run during the primary accomplish? Would it really hurt their chances by splitting the progressive vote and let others win?

I do not think so for several reasons.

Remember the Republican primaries? It started with a very large number of candidates, representing many factions within the conservative movement. As elections progressed, the strongest candidate of all won, and this is why we have President Trump. If this was 2016, Superdelegates could change the course of an election, but new changes prevent superdelegates to give certain candidates an unfair advantage.

“ Beginning with the 2020 nomination process, candidates will no longer be able to count superdelegates if they want to win the party’s nomination on the first ballot of voting at the convention. This makes it impossible for superdelegates to change the outcome of the pledged delegates’ will” -CNN

So now we have a system where every candidate can pull from their own supporters. This method will tell us with real data how a given candidate performs in a given state.

We all can argue as to who will be the best candidate, but data at the end has the final word. It was this primary data that helped Trump fine-tune his general election against Hillary Clinton. He knew which districts he could get support, and which districts to ignore. This was critical information missing in the Democratic party because the issue became Bernie Vs Hillary, and super delegate influence skewed the way the voters behaved.

So will Tulsi and Bernie hurt each other’s chances if they choose to run together?. No, in fact the data collected will better inform a general election strategy giving the ultimate nominee the ability to be better prepared to win The White House in 2020.

In any case, as the primary elections progress, we will see how Tulsi and Bernie running in the absence of superdelegate’s influence, will help them be better prepared, demonstrating once again, that our faith in this pair has not been misplaced.

While many of us would have preferred only one of them running, they are basically letting The People decide. This ladies and gentlemen, is how a true democracy operates.

Run Tulsi!
Run Bernie!

And may all America win!