Rep Tulsi Gabbard, the first Samoan American and Hindu American to serve in Congress, says she is mulling whether to announce her candidacy for the President of the United States.
Gabbard visited two early primary states this weekend, New Hampshire and Vermont.
“I’m seriously thinking of how I can best be of service to our country,” Gabbard said in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Gabbard counts herself as among the first to openly support Rep Bernie Sanders (D-VT) presidential run in 2016. She even resigned her post as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Sanders.
Sanders has not yet announced his plans for 2020.
“I think you’ll have to ask him about what his plans are,” she said. “I’m thinking through how I can best be of service to our country.”
Sanders and Gabbard met this weekend at the progressive ideas forum hosted by the Sanders Institute.
At least one New Hampshire leader is indicating he thinks Gabbard would be a viable candidate.
“I just think her story is playing extremely well here,” George Hamblen, a member of the county’s Democratic Party, said to Civil Beat. “All the progressives I know are excited about her.”
Gabbard told a group in New Hampshire that her politics stems from love.
“When we start from this foundation of love, inspired by this love, then we can truly have that strength and that power to be able to take on the tough challenges that are before us,” the Star-Advertiser reported she said. “This is how we come together as people and draw from love that strength and that courage and that fearlessness that we need to take on those forces and those obstacles that seem insurmountable, that can seem too great to overcome.”
Senator Kamala Harris announced this weekend that she will make a decision on running for president sometime this month. Gabbard says she has no timetable for a decision.
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