More women are announcing their official run for presidential candidacy in 2020, and I am loving it. But like any responsible voter, I know better than to just believe a candidate is perfect for the job. Let’s take a look at our newest candidates: Kirsten Gillibrand and Tulsi Gabbard.
A promising candidate for the 2020 election is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, announced her exploratory committee for presidential candidacy. Gillibrand received a law degree from UCLA and has practiced private law in New York City. She served in the House of Representatives, beginning in 2007, and was appointed to Senate in 2009 after Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State.
Gillibrand has used her platform as a woman to compare her duty to her family as a mother with the duty she owes the United States.
“I’m going to run for president of the United States, because as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,” she said during her appearance on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.
Gillibrand has obstinately stood against sexual assault in the military, became the first New York Senator to fight for LGBTQ rights, and argues the American Dream should be for all citizens, citing institutionalized racism, greed and corruption as the inhibitors.
What of her controversy? As a representative, she opposed amnesty for illegal immigrants and didn’t support granting more funds to immigrant sanctuaries. Since she became a Senator, she’s changed her politics. She doesn’t support deporting immigrants and supports giving more funds to sanctuary cities, including reuniting families with their children. In 2018, she was the first Senator to announce her favor of abolishing ICE.
“It’s a case of learning more and expanding my view,” Gillibrand said of her change of heart in an article in the New York Times.
Another ranking candidate is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who is not only the youngest woman to have been elected in Hawaii, but she’s the first Samoan-American and first Hindu elected to Congress in 2002-04. She has served in the Army National Guard as a member of the field medical unit in combat zones in Iraq from 2004-05 and was later transferred to Kuwait. Gabbard studied business at Hawai’i Pacific University and graduated in 2009 with a Business Administration B.S.
“I stepped down from the legislature where I served and headed to a war zone,” she said at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. “As a combat veteran, I know the costs of war.
With her political and veteran experience, she seems a likely candidate for the Democratic Party, but what of her controversial politics? She has been under fire in recent media after helping with her father’s organization, the Alliance for Traditional Marriage. This organization advocated for state rights to decide if same-sex marriage should be legal with evidence that this group supported conversion therapy.
Since then, Gabbard said she has changed. She said in a 2011 post on her campaign site that the war in the Middle East had opened her eyes to a new perspective.
“Slowly, I began to realize that the positions I had held previously regarding the issues of choice and gay marriage were rooted in the same premise held by those in power in the oppressive Middle East regimes I saw – that it is government’s role to define and enforce our personal morality,” she said.
Gabbard retired as vice president of the Democratic National Committee so she could publicly endorse Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election. She says she supports abortion rights and LGBTQ rights, and she said supports laws that ban discrimination based on sex or gender identity, including military service.
She also intends to aid in legislation that would help reduce climate change; she believes in universal healthcare; she believes in universal education; and she believes in banning assault rifles and require background checks for gun owners. She also believes troops should be pulled from Afghanistan and Syria, and American should stop funding support for Saudi-led conflict in Yemen.
Like any candidate, controversy surrounds these two women, but in their defense, anyone can change their personal values. Even so, does America want someone who has previously held anti-LGBTQ values or supported anti-immigration policies? Will Gillibrand’s current efforts to aid immigrants be enough to find support among the Democratic Party and voters alike? She not only seems to have changed her stride, but she has changed the way she acts alongside her newfound politics.
With so much at stake, and with the Trump Administration so callously against several communities, many aren’t willing to compromise, but only the polls will show how Gillibrand and Gabbard will fair among the other candidates.
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