On Politics: For presidential wannabe Tulsi Gabbard, early homophobia is just start of topics to question

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s goal to make it big in national politics has never impressed Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman. Back in 2016 he called her “an interesting person and the people from Hawaii basically have her tabbed as extremely ambitious with flexible principles.”

Last week that dislike turned into a devastating rejection during a CNN interview.

“There are no candidates, with one exception, that I really don’t think should be president,” Dean said.

“And who’s that exception?” asked CNN co-host John Berman.

“Tulsi Gabbard. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing and I don’t think she … is qualified,” Dean replied. “She’s not qualified.”

“And what’s that based on?” asked fellow co-host Alisyn Camerota.

“About her dalliances with (Syrian President Bashar Assad), her statements about gay people. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing,” said Dean.

Gabbard, who likes her public events to stay on script, now is watching her campaign celebration of all-things-Tulsi, disintegrating into a nightmare of weak political explanations. Instead of recounting her campaign theme of world peace, she is being forced to answer for her past campaigns against gays and praise for a list of right-wing dictators.

Gabbard’s first successful political campaign was for the state House in 2002 and she framed an anti-gay pitch similar to that of her Republican-turned-Democrat father, state Sen. Mike Gabbard, warning that “homosexual activists” are trying to force their values down the throats of the children in our schools.”

Back then she was the dutiful daughter, telling the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that “Working with my father, Mike Gabbard, and others to pass a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage, I learned that real leaders are willing to make personal sacrifices for the common good.”

Now Gabbard has issued a campaign apology video, in part regretting her father’s influence.

“My father was very outspoken, he was fighting against gay rights and marriage equality and I forcefully defended him,” she said. She said she has grown up and now has her own feelings about gays. But there is still a question among local Democrats, who just don’t believe Tulsi Gabbard’s change of heart.

Michael Golojuch Jr., chairman of the Hawaii Democratic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, said Gabbard’s apology doesn’t cut it.

“An apology is just the start of making amends for the damage she has done and she needed to follow it up with real actions — which we have not seen,” Golojuch said in an interview.

For Gabbard, the early homophobia is just the beginning of questions about her past. She says she is Hindu, but she actually came to her religion from first joining a local Hare Krishna offshoot called the Science of Identity Foundation, headed by self-described guru Chris Butler, who goes by the name Siddhaswarupananda, and then she later found Hinduism. Gabbard took her congressional oath of office on a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and has become a major political celebrity in the Hindu-American community.

Perhaps most telling is the mainland media’s first brush with Tulsi Gabbard as a political animal. Most headlines reflect a great suspiciousness of her. The Washington Monthly asked, “Can Democrats Trust Tulsi Gabbard?” The New Yorker questioned, “What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe?” And the left-wing Jacobin stated, “Tulsi Gabbard Is Not Your Friend.”

Clearly Gabbard’s apology tour is not over, and her campaign should be haunted by Ronald Reagan’s advice that, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.