Long before her sudden transformation into a Berniecrat, Tulsi Gabbard called me to ask for a Blue America endorsement. She didn't really try to paint herself as a progressive and she came across as a garden variety careerist Democrat, not especially bad and not especially good. At the end of the interview, I asked her about the process by which she had come to change her position on LGBT equality. She immediately said she'd call back and then hung up abruptly and... never called back.





She's extremely popular in Hawaii, where people have largely bought into her self-promoting brand of vaguely anti-establishment nationalism. These days she likes to claim she's a progressive and it is widely thought she will primary Senator Mazie Hirono from the left. ProgressivePunch rates Mazie a high "A," the third best of any U.S. Senator 96.39, fractionally behind Elizabeth Warren's 96.97 and a bit ahead of Bernie's 94.99. There isn't any room to the left of Mazie-- especially not from the sleazy Tulsi Gabbard who's lifetime crucial vote score has earned her score of 73.75 and an "F" rating. Many Democrats with F ratings use their district's conservatism as the excuse. Problem with that is that Tulsi represents one of the most progressive districts in the whole country, with a PVI of D+21. Obama beat Romney there, 71-27%. The only grief Tulsi Gabbard would get if she had a progressive voting record would be from her ultra-conservative family, her Republican financial backers and her enablers at Fox News-- oh, and her pal Steve Bannon.





To help explain the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, I reached out to an old friend on the Big Island-- part of Tulsi's district-- who follows politics closely and has a very long memory. This is his report on one aspect of Tulsi's record, her long-running homophobia: