Lisa Lerer

Gabbard had argued that the corporate news media and Democratic National Committee were working together to influence the event. On Monday, she offered little explanation of why she had dropped her objection to participating. “I just want to let you know that I will be attending the debate,” she wrote in an email to supporters.

While Gabbard had met the qualifying criteria to participate in Tuesday’s debate, she is among the lower-polling candidates and has struggled to gain traction, never breaking 3% in any major poll. She failed to qualify for the September debate and has not yet made the stage for the November faceoff. The New York Times is a co-sponsor of Tuesday’s debate with CNN.

Gabbard has disputed the polls selected by the national committee as “certifying” candidates for the debate, arguing that many of the noncertified surveys are more accurate. Those polls could also help Gabbard qualify for the November debate.

Her call won support from a fellow primary candidate, Marianne Williamson, who is also polling among the bottom tier of presidential hopefuls.

“I have great respect for Tulsi for saying such inconvenient truth,” Williamson posted on Twitter last week, after Gabbard first raised the idea of boycotting the debate.

Gabbard’s warnings of a rigged election are likely to resonate with her base, an unconventional mix of anti-interventionist progressives, libertarians, contrarian culture-war skeptics, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists. They like her isolationist foreign policy, her calling out of what she sees as censorship in the major technology platforms and her support for drug decriminalization.

Buoyed by frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, her quixotic, bare-bones campaign has also won praise from some surprising admirers, including Stephen K. Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist; former Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian star; and Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, who has said he finds her “refreshing.”

Gabbard has lobbed some of the toughest attacks on the debate stage. In July, she assailed Sen. Kamala Harris of California over her record as a prosecutor, becoming the most searched candidate on Google in the hours after the event.

Harris later shot back, calling Gabbard an “apologist” for Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, whom Gabbard controversially visited in Damascus in January 2017.

A telegenic military veteran, Gabbard, once a Democratic darling, began falling out of party favor during President Barack Obama’s administration, when she picked a series of high-profile fights over foreign policy, joining Republicans in demanding that Obama use the term “radical Islam.”

In 2016, she resigned her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. She has said that she believes that the primary was “rigged” by the party committee against Sanders.

This year’s qualifying criteria were designed by the national committee as a direct response to criticism leveled during the 2016 campaign by supporters of Sanders, who argued that the party committee organized the debate schedule to favor Clinton, the eventual party nominee.

While some lower-polling candidates have expressed frustration with the qualification rules, particularly the requirement that candidates amass at least 165,000 unique donors to make the November debate stage, there has been little outcry from Democratic voters.

In June, nearly 3 out of 4 voters who planned to attend the Iowa caucuses said that at least several of the candidates should drop out of the race, according to a Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa poll. A little more than four months later, only four of the candidates have ended their bids, leaving 19 remaining in the race.

This article originally appeared in

Gabbard, After Threatening Boycott, Will Debate on Tuesday

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, one of 12 Democratic presidential candidates who have qualified for this week’s televised debate, said Monday that she would participate in the forum after raising the possibility of boycotting it to protest what she sees as a “rigging” of the election.

And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.

“She’s got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person,” Cernovich said. “She seems very Trumpian.”

Among her fellow Democrats, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has struggled to make headway as a presidential candidate, barely cracking the 2% mark in the polls needed to qualify for Tuesday night’s debate. She is now injecting a bit of chaos into her own party’s primary race, threatening to boycott that debate to protest what she sees as a “rigging” of the 2020 election. That’s left some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media.

Perhaps strangest of all is the unusual array of Americans who cannot seem to get enough of her.

On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars, white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Trump heap praise on Gabbard. They like the Hawaiian congresswoman’s isolationist foreign policy views. They like her support for drug decriminalization. They like what she sees as censorship by big technology platforms.

Then there is 4chan, the notoriously toxic online message board, where some right-wing trolls and anti-Semites fawn over Gabbard, calling her “Mommy” and praising her willingness to criticize Israel. In April, the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, took credit for Gabbard’s qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates.

Brian Levin, the head of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, said Gabbard had “the seal of approval” within white nationalist circles. “If people have that isolationist worldview, there is one candidate that could best express them on each side: Gabbard on the Democratic side and Trump on the Republican side,” Levin said.

Gabbard has disavowed some of her most hateful supporters, castigating the news media for giving “any oxygen at all” to the endorsement she won from the white nationalist leader David Duke. But her frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show have buoyed her support in right-wing circles.

Both Gabbard and her campaign refused requests for comment about her support in right-wing circles or threat to boycott the debate. Even some political strategists who have worked with her are at a loss to explain her approach to politics.

“She’s a very talented person but I’m not sure, I just don’t know what to say about the campaign exactly,” said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist who worked with Gabbard when she was campaigning for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016.

There is potential upside for Gabbard: Drawing more attention could energize her donors and perhaps attract more supporters, extending her candidacy’s life span.

Yet there is only confusion for several Democratic officials, activists and party officials, who privately say they have been a little spooked by Gabbard. Rival campaigns worry about her unpredictable attacks, if she participates in the debate, pointing to her sharp jabs against Sen. Kamala Harris of California in an earlier matchup.

“She’s taken a series of policy steps which signal to the right that she has deep areas of alignment,” said Neera Tanden, a longtime policy adviser to Hillary Clinton who now leads the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

The questions deepened Thursday after Gabbard threatened to boycott Tuesday’s debate, arguing that the corporate news media and the Democratic National Committee are working together to rig the event. (The New York Times is a co-sponsor of the debate with CNN.)

That message resonates with many of Gabbard’s supporters. In a moment marked by fractured politics, Gabbard’s nontraditional positions are a major part of her appeal for voters seeking to break out of polarized partisan divisions. Joe Rogan, the popular podcast host, said he planned to vote for her. Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, donated to her campaign.

But it’s also an argument that reminds some Democrats of the narrative pushed by Russian actors during the 2016 presidential contest, when an operation by internet trolls worked to manipulate U.S. public opinion: that the electoral system is broken and cannot be trusted.

Some of those who have worked with Gabbard say that, as an Iraq War veteran whose chief message is that America should stop trying to police the world, she is representing viewpoints that draw support from an array of people in the United States as well as abroad.

“In reality, Tulsi is really running on an anti-war message that’s consistent with where a lot of veterans are,” said Jon Soltz, chairman of the liberal veterans organization VoteVets.org, which worked closely with Gabbard during her first congressional campaign. “I know everyone thinks there’s a conspiracy theory here but that’s really what she’s doing.”

Still, Democrats are on high alert about foreign interference in the next election and the DNC is well aware of the frequent mentions of Gabbard in the Russian state news media.

An independent analysis of the Russian news media found that RT, the Kremlin-backed news agency, mentioned Gabbard frequently for a candidate polling in single digits, according to data collected by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group that seeks to track and expose efforts by authoritarian regimes to undermine democratic elections.

Disinformation experts have also pointed to instances of suspicious activity surrounding Gabbard’s campaign — in particular, a Twitter hashtag, #KamalaHarrisDestroyed, that trended among Gabbard’s supporters after the first Democratic debate, and appeared to be amplified by a coordinated network of bot-like accounts — but there is no evidence of coordination between these networks and the campaign itself.

Laura Rosenberger, a former policy aide to Clinton’s campaign and director of the Alliance, sees Gabbard as a potentially useful vector for Russian efforts to sow division within the Democratic Party.

“The Russian activity could be part of a longer-term effort to drive a wedge among Democrats,” she said. “This messaging has echoes of 2016.”

That kind of speculation inflames Gabbard’s supporters online, who are known for swarming Gabbard’s critics on Twitter, for attacking the news media and the Democratic establishment for perceived bias against her and for compiling YouTube clips of her “destroying” and “shutting down” her Democratic rivals.

Gabbard’s fans are especially sensitive to claims that she is supported by Russian bots and amplified by the Russian state-funded news media outlets — a conspiracy theory, they say, that is designed to delegitimize her campaign and her foreign policy views.

“This whole thing the Democratic Party has done by putting forward this false idea that there was collusion between Russia and Trump has hurt our relations in a huge way with the Russians,” Graham said. “I can’t speak for Tulsi, but I think she feels kind of the same way on some of these things.”

While Democrats in Washington fret about Gabbard, her primary rivals have largely stayed silent, seeing little advantage in attacking a low-polling candidate.

She is likely to get harsher treatment back in Hawaii, where a cottage industry of researchers, former opponents and Democratic strategists has sprung up to track her connections and background — as well as her ties to the teachings of Chris Butler, the controversial guru who founded The Science of Identity Foundation, and whose work she said still guides her. Gabbard has said the focus on her relationship with Butler and her faith was fueled by anti-Hindu bigotry.

She already faces a serious primary challenge for her House seat from state Sen. Kai Kahele, a Democrat. Though his campaign is focused on economic issues, he sees Gabbard’s support from extremists as a potential liability.

“Clearly there’s something about her and her policies that attacks and appeals to these type of people who are white nationalists, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers,” Kahele said. “To her credit she has denounced David Duke, rejected these endorsements. But it does beg the question why.”

Gabbard, once a Democratic darling as a telegenic newcomer and the first Hindu member of Congress, began falling out of party favor during the Obama administration, when she picked a series of fights over foreign policy, joining Republicans in demanding that President Barack Obama use the term “radical Islam.”

In 2016, she resigned her position as vice chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders over Clinton.

While Gabbard has opposed recent military interventions in the Middle East, she has developed relationships with leaders known for their authoritarian tendencies. She touts her support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who has empowered Hindu fundamentalists at great cost to India’s minorities. Gabbard also met with Egypt’s strongman leader, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, during a 2015 trip to Paris with Dana Rohrabacher, a former Republican congressman known for his ties to Russians.

Most controversially, she has repeatedly defended the brutal Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad, whom she met in January 2017.

Those positions confound even some of her former Republican supporters.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a pro-Israel activist who founded the World Values Network, said he first met Gabbard through Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who brought the congresswoman to dinner at a kosher restaurant in Washington.

His group, which is funded by the Republican megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, awarded Gabbard their “Champion of Freedom Award” at their annual gala in 2016. A picture from the event shows a grinning Gabbard posing with Boteach and Miriam Adelson.

In the three years since, Gabbard has criticized Israel for its reaction to protests, met with Assad and made several statements defending his regime.

“To have a moral woman like Tulsi who is a military hero suddenly sit with a man who did that was inexplicable,” Boteach said. “I don’t understand it until today. I can’t figure her out.”

WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, is impressed with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could vote for her. Former Rep. Ron Paul praises her “libertarian instincts,” while Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her “refreshing.”

What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?

But in the hours before the chest pains that led to an emergency procedure in a Las Vegas hospital, Sanders, 78, uttered a different, perhaps more telling, series of six words.

“Get me a chair up here,” he said, turning to his deputy campaign manager Tuesday, before sitting down in front of the crowd of 250 gathered for a fundraiser in a Persian restaurant. “It’s been a long day here.”

For months, Democrats have watched as a trio of septuagenarians commanded the majority of support in their crowded primary field: Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 70, and Sanders have consistently led in the contest to face President Donald Trump, 73, next year.

Presidential campaigns always reflect the hopes and fears — or, as political strategists call them, the “kitchen table conversations” — of the voters who cast the ballots. And this year, along with health care costs and college affordability, stagnant wages and immigration, the contest also reflects of another issue, one that strikes at the heart of a country where the highest share of the electorate will be older than 65 since at least 1970: How old is too old?

Voters, who have watched candidates through debate stages and state party dinners, on sweaty stages and speed-walking across the state fair, corn dog in hand, do not generally want to say there is a ceiling. No one is too old to be doing this. They just are not sure they would want to be keeping up such a rigorous schedule in their 70s. Would you?

Gerontologists and other experts in aging say there is simply no way to definitively address the question of an upper age limit on the rigors of the presidency.

“There’s no answer. It’s unknowable,” said Dr. Mark Lachs, co-chief of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. “It’s true that rates of physical and cognitive impairment are age dependent but there’s all kind of variability.”

The averages paint a sobering picture: The average life expectancy in the United States is just under 79, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even as Americans live longer than ever before, about 85% of older adults have at least one chronic disease, and more than three-quarters have at least two.

But despite the statistics, one person’s 70 can be another’s 60, Lachs said. And being 70 years old, he added, is not at all what it used to be.

“The yardstick gets moved every decade because the country is aging and medical care becomes better,” he said. “Age should not be a disqualification for the presidency.”

That’s a message some voters happily believe, as they confront the realities of aging in their own lives. The number of Americans who plan to retire after age 66 has steadily ticked up over the past quarter century, with a quarter saying they do not plan to retire at all.

“Seventy is the new 50,” said Halliestine Zimmerman, a retired accountant from Greenville, South Carolina, who celebrated her 70th birthday in June, a week before Warren did. “You don’t really think I am at the end of my life span, you think more you are in the middle. I know what it is I want out of my life, and you know how to get it.”

Zimmerman’s husband, whose age she would only give as “70-plus,” had a triple bypass several years ago and today he regularly plays tennis.

“He’s doing fantastic, so a stent doesn’t bother me at all,” she said of Sanders. “I don’t think he will stop campaigning, I don’t think he should — remember a lot of people don’t make it to his age.”

But others worry that an older commander-in-chief would share the declines they have experienced in their own physical and mental abilities over the years.

Discussions of aging have been all-but-inescapable on the campaign trail. Since he entered the race, Biden has been dogged by questions about his physical fitness and condition — concerns he has tried to alleviate by bounding through parade routes and shaking dozens of hands in steamy summer weather. Sanders keeps a blistering campaign schedule that often includes multiple events in multiple cities each day. And supporters of Warren gush about her vitality, bragging about the hundreds of selfies she takes with supporters after each appearance.

“I was just amazed that when you first came out here, Sen. Warren, that you ran up those steps the way that you did, and all this energy and stamina that you have,” Nikita Jackson, a Rock Hill, South Carolina city councilwoman, said as she praised Warren to a crowd at a town hall event Saturday.

None of the Democratic candidates have been particularly eager to delve into the details of their health. Aides to Sanders released a brief statement noting that he “was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted,” a fairly common procedure in the United States. Like his rivals, Sanders has not yet released his medical records, though all three have vowed to do so before the Iowa caucuses in February.

With little actual medical information, even minor irregularities in how candidates appear have prompted a flurry of age-related speculation. When Sanders hit his head on the edge of a glass shower door, his campaign explained that he had received a cut requiring stitches but stressed that he did not fall. Biden appeared to be moving his mouth in a strange fashion during the last debate, which led to questions about whether he wore dentures. At Biden’s campaign events, voters question whether his verbal missteps can be attributed to his age.

“He’s not as sharp as he might be,” Carol Sobelson, 63, at a campaign event in Concord, New Hampshire, said. “He’s done a lot for our country, he was a great vice president. He’s probably not my first choice.”

Health, or the perception of a candidate’s health, is unlikely to be off the table in a campaign against Trump. In 2016, his supporters spliced together video footage of Hillary Clinton coughing and Trump often questioned her stamina, particularly after she abruptly left a ceremony in New York honoring the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Already, Trump has started questioning Biden’s energy levels, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe.”

Nearly all Democrats prefer candidates in their 40s through 60s, according to surveys. When asked about the ideal age for a president, just 3% said the 70s, according to polling released by Pew Research Center in May. Other polls have shown that Americans express more discomfort with a candidate in their 70s than one who is gay, Muslim or an independent.

The two Democratic nominees who have won the White House since 1992 — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — made generational change a key part of their winning campaign message. Both were the youngest in their primary fields.

Age May Be Just a Number, but Will Chest Pains Give Voters Pause?

For months, Sen. Bernie Sanders brushed off questions about his age, offering a simple, six-word mantra to those who doubt he’s energetic enough to run for president: “Follow me around the campaign trail.”

But Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D- Minn., is making a rather traditional political bet. While primary voters might flirt with flashier presidential candidates, in the end, they will settle down with a steady Midwestern senator in 2020.

“People are so mad about Donald Trump and the Republicans,” she said during a recent interview in Des Moines. “But remember, this is about actually getting things done. And first of all, winning an election. There’s nothing wrong with anger and passion, but it’s putting it into something that will get results.”

Since entering the race more than two months ago in the midst of a Minnesota blizzard, Klobuchar has been resolutely inching her way forward. Forgoing packed rallies and soaring rhetoric, she is trying to sell voters on the politics of the practical, arguing that her record can win back some of the coveted Rust Belt voters who supported President Donald Trump.

Instead of high school gymnasiums crowded with sweaty, cheering Democrats, there have been health care round tables and tours of ethanol plants. As other candidates roll out the policies of left-wing dreams, Klobuchar has focused her early proposals on reliably bipartisan concerns like infrastructure and privacy protections for personal data.

But as her rivals promise generational change, national unity and sweeping liberal platforms, Klobuchar’s big idea is far more prosaic: a win.

“I am your neighbor,” she told several dozen voters gathered at a union hall in Des Moines on a recent Friday afternoon. “I think you all know we had some difficulty in some of the states in the heartland in 2016. But I’m someone who’s been able to win in difficult counties.”

It is an unusually explicit electoral appeal aimed squarely at the animating desire of Democratic primary voters: finding a candidate who can defeat Trump.

While Democrats are united around that goal, there is little consensus over how to achieve it. After a winter in which liberal ideas dominated the primary race, the entrance of more moderate candidates, like Klobuchar, is prompting a fresh round of soul-searching about whether embracing policies like the Green New Deal and “Medicare for All” could backfire in a general election, alienating the suburban voters who helped lead the party to victory in the midterms.

Along with Klobuchar, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is expected to enter the race in the coming days, and former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, who has already declared his candidacy, believe they can win enough support from the party’s liberal wing with appeals of electability, even if they do not quite capture voters’ imaginations.

Klobuchar describes herself as a “proven progressive,” citing former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Sen. Paul Wellstone, two liberal Minnesotan political icons, as her mentors.

During her three terms in the Senate, she has not led on divisive issues like immigration, focusing instead on solving consumer-friendly problems like curbing the cost of prescription drugs, tackling opioid abuse, improving the safety of schools and swimming pools, and increasing the oversight of big technology companies.

“She’s progressive, but she’s not out there on crazy issues, particularly issues that can’t be funded in our lifetime,” said Mondale, who encouraged Klobuchar to jump into the race. “Right now it’s all flash, but that doesn’t do it in the long run. You’ve got to have quality and substance and experience.”

He added, “They’re all spouting off with good ideas, or bad ideas that sound good, and Amy will do this slowly.”

Klobuchar has yet to crack the top tier of the polls, though she has done well enough to earn a place on the debate stage.

While she is hardly a centrist, she has distinguished herself by breaking from the new liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the primary so far.

The first policy proposal released by her campaign was a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, an idea that is popular among Republicans and was championed by Trump during his presidential run.

She does not favor a “Medicare for All” health care system, preferring a more graduated approach, and she has called the Green New Deal “aspirational.”

When asked by a student at a CNN town hall if she supported free tuition for students at public colleges and universities, she said she did not.

“If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would,” she said.

Her approach has turned off some progressive activists.

“When we talk to our members, frankly, they aren’t super excited about Sen. Klobuchar,” said Yvette Simpson, chief executive of Democracy For America, a political action committee that backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 presidential primary. “Voters are looking for champions, fighters, people who are going to go all the way. She has taken an approach that is unfortunately more incremental.”

Klobuchar, 58, grew up in the Minneapolis suburbs. Her mother was a schoolteacher. Her father, a prominent newspaper columnist, struggled with alcoholism during her childhood, and Klobuchar was rocketed into the national spotlight after she raised those struggles during a hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

She has referenced her father’s story on the campaign trail while discussing opioid addiction and mental health, saying his story showed her that “everyone should be able to be pursued by grace” and find redemption.

The queen of the clever aside, she peppers her stump speech with jokes about raising money from her ex-boyfriends (“not an expanding base”), working with Republicans like the anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist (“don’t be scared”) and making her case to Minnesota’s independent voters (“three words for you: Gov. Jesse Ventura”).

Her wit and willingness to work across the aisle have made her popular among Republicans, winning her a laudatory column from conservative writer George Will and compliments from her GOP colleagues in the Senate and in her home state.

“She goes out of her way to connect with people who may not traditionally vote for Democrats,” said Charles R. Weaver Jr., a Republican business lobbyist who served in the Minnesota statehouse.

“But she’s not flashy,” he added. “And maybe that’s what Democrats want. And if that’s what they want, she’s not going to be there at the end.”

A big part of her argument hinges on geography: Klobuchar believes her understanding of Midwestern voters and ability to win Republican areas is key to her success.

It was Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory in Minnesota, a state she won by the smallest margin of any Democratic presidential candidate in decades, that prompted Klobuchar to think seriously about mounting her own presidential bid.

She spent 2018 working to elect other Democrats in her home state, helping her party hold both Senate seats and the governorship and flip control of two congressional districts (though the Republicans flipped two as well).

Although her public persona has been described as “Minnesota nice,” Klobuchar is a shrewd political insider who softens her efforts to win over tough rooms with flattery and a quick, often folksy and occasionally dirty, sense of humor. She has acknowledged critiques that she mistreats her staff by describing herself as someone with high expectations who can “sometimes be too tough.”

Fiercely proud of her bipartisan approach, she heralds the high number of bills she has passed through Congress, the 42 counties Trump carried that she won last November and the allies she has cultivated across the aisle.

“When I look at this landscape we’re in, with all these people running, I think eventually people in the Democratic Party are going to say, show me the work, show me what you’ve gotten done,” she said. “But also show me how you can win, because that is the No. 1 concern they have.”

First, though, she must prevail in a crowded Democratic primary where her regional appeal may not carry the sway it once did. In an increasingly national media environment, cable news appearances and internet fame have driven notable amounts of money, coverage and momentum.

“I just don’t have the sense that being from a neighboring state is a huge advantage in such a big field at this particular point,” said J. Ann Selzer, a longtime pollster with one of the most accurate track records in Iowa. “Everything is more nationalized.”

Klobuchar and her aides acknowledge that a strong showing in Iowa is particularly crucial to her chances, given that she casts herself as the “senator next door.”

“I love the smell of ethanol,” she said, trooping through the gravel yard of a plant in rural Nevada, Iowa, as cold winds swept hard hats off the heads of those around her. “It’s like waking up with fresh bread.”

A few hours later, she made her pitch at a meeting with the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, telling them that she had stopped by the ethanol plant as part of her effort to reach beyond traditional Democratic voters.

“You have to meet people where they are and go out there,” she said.

David and Lauren Solomon, Democratic retirees from Des Moines, said they believed a more moderate candidate, like Klobuchar, would have the best shot at defeating Trump.

“Sure, I’d like some of these young kids, but they don’t have a chance against Trump in my opinion,” David Solomon said. “You’ve got to win the majority of the people.”

But sitting just a seat away, Catie Wittanger, a student at Drake University, said she thought most of the Democratic candidates could probably win the White House. What was most important to her was someone who shared her progressive values.

“Because of how our political system is right now, we do need somebody who is willing to take really big steps that a lot of people may consider risky,” Wittanger said. “I don’t think I could see myself caucusing for Klobuchar.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-2020-president.html" id="090caffe-c32c-36c5-a388-cc564085a809">The New York Times</a>.

Klobuchar's Big Idea: Bipartisan Appeal Can Beat Trump

NEVADA, Iowa — She doesn’t speak Norwegian. She never played bass in an emo-punk band. And she isn’t trying to lead a “political revolution.”

Since entering the race more than two months ago in the midst of a Minnesota blizzard, Klobuchar has been resolutely inching her way to the presidency. Forgoing packed rallies and soaring rhetoric, she is trying to sell voters on the politics of the practical, arguing that her record can win back some of the coveted Rust Belt voters who supported President Donald Trump.

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more,” he told reporters about his hugs and kisses to women over the years. “I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I’ve never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman.”

Speaking at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Washington, the former vice president used his first public remarks since the complaints emerged to try to push past the weeklong controversy that has overshadowed his expected presidential campaign.

In his address, he largely stuck to his long-running political themes, highlighting the importance of uniting a divided nation and restoring the “great American middle class” — save for two notable asides.

As he took the stage, he hugged Lonnie R. Stephenson, the union’s president. “I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie,” he said, and the largely male crowd burst into laughter.

Several minutes into his remarks, Biden spotted children in the audience. After welcoming them to the stage, Biden wrapped his arm around a young boy. “By the way, he gave me permission to touch him,” he said, to laughter.

But Biden acknowledged that his physically intimate style of campaigning would have to change — a shift he compared to his efforts to adjust to the practice of snapping selfies with voters.

“It’s going to have to change somewhat how I campaign,” he said. “It’s a new thing. It’s important, and I’m sure it’s going to take a while for it to settle out. But it’s settled out for me.”

But the public joking by Biden struck a nerve among some of the women who had expressed discomfort with their interactions.

“Biden’s consent joke is a clear indication Biden doesn’t get it and doesn’t take the voice of the women who have come forward seriously,” said Amy Lappos, who told the The Hartford Courant that Biden crossed “a line of respect” in their 2009 encounter at a fundraiser in Connecticut.

Others praised Biden’s remarks as an indication that he was listening to criticism of his behavior and trying to change.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/us/politics/joe-biden-controversy.html" id="3e6ee0a5-d0b4-30b1-ac9f-691f439dc6cd">The New York Times</a>.

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden on Friday twice jokingly referred to complaints from several women that he had made them uncomfortable with his physical contact, and then offered a convoluted apology about their concerns and his behavior.

Biden Jokes About Hugging in a Speech, Then Offers a Mixed Apology

The joke came as Biden was fending off criticism from some Democrats who worry that the 76-year-old is out of step with the party’s current sensibilities around gender and race. In recent days, he has struggled to address complaints from women that his hugs, kisses and other expressions of his physically intimate style of politicking were unwelcome.

Even as Biden sought to move past the accusations, they were plainly on his mind.

“Everyone knows I like kids more than people,” he added.

In his comments to reporters, made just a few feet from where President Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated in 1981, Biden all but announced his third presidential bid, saying he had been “told by the lawyers” that he had to watch his words to avoid triggering certain campaign finance rules that start with an announcement. He indicated that he viewed a late entry into the crowded field as a strategic advantage.

“Give everybody else their day. Then I get a shot, and then we’re off to the races,” he said.

But Biden also said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if more women came forward. He acknowledged that his physically intimate style of campaigning would have to change — a shift he compared to his efforts to adjust to the practice of snapping selfies with voters.

And Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman who published an essay last week that described Biden touching and kissing her inappropriately at a 2014 campaign event, wrote on Twitter: “It’s clear @JoeBiden hasn’t reflected at all on how his inappropriate and unsolicited touching made women feel uncomfortable. To make light of something as serious as consent degrades the conversation women everywhere are courageously trying to have.”

Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, tweeted that Biden’s making light of the controversy was “disrespectful and inexcusable.”

Celinda Lake, a pollster who specializes in female voters, said Biden’s comments would resonate within a Democratic primary electorate in which a majority of voters are expected to be over 50 — and may identify with Biden’s struggles to understand shifting norms around interactions between men and women.

“I thought he showed that he accepts responsibility, recognizes the issues and is changing,” said Lake, who worked on Biden’s 2008 presidential bid. “No one is perfect. His intent was clear. And he is changing.”

And Biden’s comments added more grist for a controversy spinning in several directions at once. Judith Shulevitz, who writes on feminism and other topics, including as a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times, said the furious backlash about Biden’s long-public behavior reflected opposition to his candidacy more than his suddenly controversial personal style.

“Don’t pretend to be having an elevated discussion of public policy when you’re conducting character assassination,” she wrote in Politico. “You have come to bury Uncle Joe, not review his record. Own up to it.”

The union conference offered a friendly and comfortable setting for Biden, but it represented only one element of an increasingly diverse Democratic Party base. Biden proclaimed he felt at home with the crowd, liberally sprinkling his comments with the mild profanity that he often deploys at political rallies.

“We’ve gotten so damn sophisticated. We’ve gotten so damn elitist,” he said, referring to what he said was a tilt away from valuing blue-collar labor. “I hate the way things have changed over the last 15 to 20 years.”

He used the bulk of his speech to critique economic inequality and partisanship, offering an argument for American renewal that could form the basis of his campaign. He also leveled a full-throated indictment of Trump, perhaps previewing an opening salvo.

“What in the hell is happening? Our children are listening,” he said. “This country can’t afford more years of a president looking to settle personal scores.”

Some Democrats view the former vice president, with his decades of legislative experience and a folksy, blue-collar political brand, as the most formidable potential challenger to Trump. Biden, who also enjoys broad name recognition, leads in most early polling of the race for the Democratic nomination.

But others fear that Biden, who would enter the White House as the oldest president in U.S. history, and his team are unprepared to deal effectively with the political pitfalls posed by his decadeslong legislative record and old-fashioned style. Biden was slow to respond personally to the furor surrounding the women’s complaints, relying at first on statements issued by aides and supporters.

As criticism mounted and more women came forward, Biden released an online video Wednesday, in which he tried to explain his approach to “connecting” with people over the years. He has described himself as a “tactile politician” who tries to comfort people with hugs, kisses and touches on the shoulder when they appear nervous or upset.

In the seemingly homemade two-minute video, Biden promised to “be more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space” in the future. Reaction to his comments was divided, with critics questioning the lack of a clear apology for his behavior and supporters praising his willingness to address the issue.

Trump taunted Biden about the accusations Thursday, tweeting a 15-second video that mocked Biden, accompanied by the text “WELCOME BACK JOE!” With his remark, the president seemed to be practically inviting a re-examination of his own record with women, including multiple claims of sexual harassment and the “Access Hollywood” tape that nearly derailed his 2016 campaign.

While Biden fashions himself as a fierce defender of women’s rights, frequently citing his work as the architect of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, he has already faced obstacles in his efforts to win over female Democrats. Women are expected to make up a majority of voters in the Democratic primary, which includes six female candidates.

Recent comments that he wished he “could have done something” to treat Anita Hill’s claims of sexual harassment with more respect during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 drew fierce backlash from critics, who pointed out that Biden had been chairman of the Senate committee that questioned Hill. His shifting position on abortion rights over his 36 years in the Senate has also drawn fresh scrutiny.

The joke came as Biden was fending off criticism from some Democrats who worry that the 76-year-old is out of step with the party’s mores around gender and race. In recent days, he has struggled to address complaints from women that his hugs, kisses and other expressions of his physically intimate style of politicking were unwelcome.

“Give everybody else their day, then I get a shot and then we’re off to the races,” he said.

But Biden also said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if more women came forward, acknowledging that his physically intimate style of campaigning would have to change — a shift he compared to his efforts to adjust to the practice of snapping selfies with voters.

“It’s going to have to change somewhat how I campaign,” he said. “It’s a new thing. It’s important and I’m sure it’s going to take a while for it to settle out. But it’s settled out for me.”

“Biden’s consent joke is a clear indication Biden doesn’t get it and doesn’t take the voice of the women who have come forward seriously,” said Amy Lappos, who told the The Hartford Courant that Biden crossed “a line of respect” in their 2009 encounter.

Jessica Valenti, a feminist author, wrote on Twitter that Biden’s making light of the controversy was part of the problem.

“When women talk about the every day indignities we face — the too-close hugs, the shoulder rubs — a huge hurdle is the fear that we’ll be accused of overreacting,” she wrote. “That we’ll be laughed at. Biden is proving that fear correct.”

Some Democrats view the former vice president, with his decades of legislative experience and a folksy, blue-collar political brand, as the most formidable potential challenger to Trump. Biden leads in most early polling of the race for the Democratic nomination.

Speaking at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Washington, the former vice president used his first public remarks since the complaints emerged to try to push past the controversy that overtook his expected presidential campaign in the past week.

The joke came as Biden was fending off criticism from some Democrats who worry the 76-year-old is out of step with the party’s mores around gender and race. In recent days, he has struggled to address accusations from women that his hugs, kisses and other expressions of his physically intimate style of politicking were unwelcome.

Even as Biden sought to move past the complaints, they were plainly on his mind.

He used the bulk of his speech to critique economic inequality and partisanship, offering an argument for American renewal that could form the basis of his possible presidential campaign. He also leveled a full-throated indictment of President Donald Trump.

“This country was not built by Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers,” he said. “It was built by the great American middle class.”

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden on Friday twice jokingly referred to complaints from several women that he had made them uncomfortable with his physical contact, and then gave a convoluted apology about their concerns and his behavior.

The joke came as Biden was fending off criticism from some Democrats who worry that the 76-year-old is out of step with the party’s mores around gender and race. In recent days, he has struggled to address accusations from women that his hugs, kisses and other expressions of his physically intimate style of politicking were unwelcome.

He used the bulk of his speech to critique economic inequality and partisanship, offering an argument for American renewal that could form the basis of his possible presidential campaign. He also leveled a full-throated indictment of President Donald Trump, perhaps previewing the opening salvo of a third presidential bid.

The union conference offered a friendly and comfortable setting for Biden, but one that represented only one element of an increasingly diverse Democratic Party base. Biden proclaimed he felt at home with the crowd, liberally sprinkling his comments with the mild profanity that he often deploys at political rallies.

“We’ve gotten so damn sophisticated. We’ve gotten so damn elitist,” he said. “I hate the way things have changed over the last 15 to 20 years.”

Biden is widely expected to announce his presidential bid in the coming weeks. Some Democrats view the former vice president, with his decades of legislative experience and a folksy, blue-collar political brand, as potentially the most formidable challenger to Trump. Biden leads in most early polling of the race for the Democratic nomination.

But others fear that Biden, who would enter the White House as the oldest president in U.S. history, and his team are unprepared to deal effectively with the political pitfalls posed by his decadeslong legislative record and old-fashioned style. Biden was slow to respond personally to the furor surrounding the new complaints, leaving much of the response to statements issued by aides and supporters.

The appearance before the union was opened to the media shortly after Biden released an online video Wednesday, in which he tried to explain his approach to “connecting” with people over the years. He has described himself as a “tactile politician” who tries to comfort people with hugs, kisses and touches on the shoulder when they appear nervous or upset.

Trump taunted Biden about the allegations Thursday, tweeting a 15-second video that mocked Biden, accompanied by the text “WELCOME BACK JOE!” With his remark, the president seemed to be practically inviting a re-examination of his own record with women, including multiple claims of sexual harassment and the “Access Hollywood” tape that nearly derailed his 2016 campaign.

While Biden fashions himself as a fierce defender of women’s rights, frequently citing his work as the architect of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, he has already faced obstacles in his efforts to win over female Democrats as he prepares for the possibility of a third presidential bid. Women are expected to make up a majority of voters in the Democratic primary, which includes six female candidates.

It was a new era in Washington in 1981, and abortion rights activists were terrified.

With an anti-abortion president, Ronald Reagan, in power and Republicans controlling the Senate for the first time in decades, social conservatives pushed for a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that had made abortion legal nationwide several years earlier.

The amendment — which the National Abortion Rights Action League called “the most devastating attack yet on abortion rights” — cleared a key hurdle in the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 1982. Support came not only from Republicans but from a 39-year-old, second-term Democrat: Joe Biden.

“I’m probably a victim, or a product, however you want to phrase it, of my background,” Biden, a Roman Catholic, said at the time. The decision, he said, was “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.”

The bill never made it to the full Senate, and when it came back up the following year, Biden voted against it. His back-and-forth over abortion would become a hallmark of his political career.

As Biden prepares for the possibility of a third presidential run, women’s rights leaders and activists in both parties are recalling these shifts on abortion, which are likely to draw fresh scrutiny in a Democratic primary race where women are expected to make up a majority of voters.

Biden entered the Senate in 1973 as a 30-year-old practicing Catholic who soon concluded that the Supreme Court went “too far” on abortion rights in the Roe case. He told an interviewer the following year that a woman shouldn’t have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.” By the time he left the vice president’s mansion in early 2017, he was a 74-year-old who argued a far different view: that government doesn’t have “a right to tell other people that women, they can’t control their body,” as he put it in 2012.

Abortion has long been a difficult issue for Catholic Democrats and leaders including former Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Many Catholic Democrats in government have cited their faith in explaining their personal opposition to abortion while taking stands to support abortion rights — and, in some cases, also holding positions in favor of some abortion restrictions. A Pew Research Center poll last fall showed Catholics divided on whether abortion should be legal.

But some of Biden’s more moderate-to-conservative stances in his legislative record are raising questions in the party about whether he could win over an ascendant liberal wing eager to impose purity tests around issues of race and gender in 2020.

Even before announcing a candidacy, Biden has started trying to rebut those concerns, telling party officials in Delaware this month that he has “the most progressive record” of anyone running for president.

But the issue of abortion poses particularly challenging terrain for Biden. Efforts to restrict access to abortion by the Trump administration, and the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, have heightened concerns among many Democrats that federal protections of abortion rights could be chipped away or eventually overturned — and that the next president needs to be a dependable ally on abortion issues.

Lisa Lerer

Articles written by the author

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