Tulsi's Strategy

Tulsi has been pretty explicit about her strategy to move herself into a better position. Thought I'd lay it out here so that people can understand it better and comment on it if they wish.

First, she wants to raise $1 million. If you look at the Tulsi2020.com website, there is now a tracker to see how close Tulsi is getting to that million-dollar ask (as of this moment, she has raised $404,998). The purpose of this money is to launch "digital and TV ads in early states like New Hampshire". In an earlier tweet, the one where she declined to attend the December debates (not that she qualified anyway), she highlighted both New Hampshire and South Carolina as states she would be campaigning in instead.

Second, focus all energies on New Hampshire and South Carolina--her highest polling early states. No recent poll has been below 5% in New Hampshire (some have been over 6%), and no recent poll has been below 4% in South Carolina (some have been at 5%). She has literally rented a house in New Hampshire over the past month, and is going to meet people face-to-face just about every day, unless she needs to be in DC or South Carolina. The goal here is all-out ground game to build on the percentages in those two states. Meet people directly, and convince them to vote for her.

The aim is to build up such face time in those two states that she surprises and surpasses the 15% threshold needed to gain delegates in each of those states. That, more than anything else, would make her a player in the overall competition, and she knows it.

Will it work? Who knows, really. If she starts polling 8%-10% in early to mid-January in these two states, it just might. Remember in the recent New Hampshire poll where she polled her 6.2% highest, a full 22% of survey respondents said that they were still undecided as to who to vote for. That's a lot of people.

We'll see how it all plays out. Iowa holds its caucus on Feb. 3. New Hampshire does its primary on Feb. 11. Nevada holds its caucus on Feb. 22. South Carolina primary is Feb. 29. Then comes SuperTuesday on Mar. 3 with at least nine states. Her home state of Hawaii votes on Apr. 5.

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Complete hostility, too. A power imbalance like that is enough to discourage most candidates or force them to relinquish their principles and positions. But as long as they let TPTB control the process to that extent, they (and we) will always lose. So in a sense, Tulsi is launching a one-woman challenge to the existing power structure. If it works, it's preferable to all-out revolution.

If she can present it in terms similar to these, she would probably attract more donors and she may very well succeed. I don't know how they'd respond in that case.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Alligator Ed's picture

Whoa! I don't mean Tulsi is a neoliberal. What I mean is that she should create a brain and talent drain from the Dem Party. For starters, bring along Andy Yang, Nina Turner (sorry, not you Bernard), Ro Khanna, Cenk Uyghur (because he is a fucking firebrand even if he is still a Russiagater).

Definitely, this enumeration is simply a starting point.

Sorry, DNC, you have no heart or soul

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lotlizard's picture

@Alligator Ed  
One bit of incidental yet politically intriguing film trivia in the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, of which I have a Dutch DVD:

Along with all the other flags on display at the UN-like world headquarters of the Rescue Aid Society, one brief shot zooms in on the flags of East Germany and South Vietnam hanging side by side.

Why, in a film released in 1990 and set in the Australian outback, this gratuitous dating of the story as pre-1975? Did Disney think it important to signal that the mice are completely agnostic and/or ecumenical when it comes to human governments and ideologies? Was it a shout-out to those few parents in the audience who themselves grew up in two bygone worlds that their own kids will never know?

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mimi's picture

either who he is (other than what his online bio shows), who he was, what he said in the past, what he says now, who endorsed him for what and why was it good or bad for Bernie to withdraw the endorsement of Cenk Uyghur.
(so, do you spell his name Uyghur or Uygur?)
[video:https://youtu.be/NohSCoBNYqM]
I saw Jimmy Dore's piece and it confused me and I am not sure that I believe Jimmy's words this time to honest to gawd valid. Bernie rolled over? Didn't stand up? Jimmy loves Bernie?
[video:https://youtu.be/Bc1_-XnfKS4]
oh boy, Fridays for Napping - Now !

Jimmy said, once you start apologizing, you never stop apologizing. (That seems to be right I apologize almost in any comment I make. And think that is me rolling over.)
I am sad and tired and roll over into my bed now and take another nap.

Collective list of who are the most stoned campaign managing and reporting crews? I don't drink, don't do drugs, and know the list would be too long and a waste of time to read. YMMV.

And I still love you so ... but the Silent Night is coming and silent I will be for sure. How about you?

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Situational Lefty's picture

I know plenty of people who want to vote for a candidate who is opposed to the wars-as-foreign policy that the US adopted after 9-11. I don't hear any other candidate talking about foreign policy.

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"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian