Tulsi formally launches campaign for president

bdmetronews Desk ॥ U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat known for bucking the party establishment and for criticizing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, formally launched her campaign for president with a video posted online Thursday.

Gabbard joins a growing field of Democrats seeking their party’s nomination. U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro recently announced a bid, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Kamala Harris of California say they are running.

“We have people in positions of power who are not thinking about the well-being of the people and our planet,” Gabbard said in the video . “Where is that conversation about the needs of our people?”

Gabbard, 37, has represented Honolulu’s suburbs and rural Hawaii in the U.S. House since 2013. She is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Kuwait with the Hawaii National Guard.

She was an early, vocal supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the last presidential campaign, which has made her popular with progressive Democrats.

Gabbard indicated in an interview with CNN earlier this month that she would be a candidate. She said she would follow it up with a formal launch, which occurred Thursday.

Critics have focused on her past advocacy against same-sex marriage.

In one example, she spoke at a news conference in 2004 when she was a state representative about federal judges “tearing apart our U.S. Constitution in order to force same-sex marriage down the throats of the people of Hawaii and America.”

She appeared on behalf of Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values, an organization founded by her father to lobby against same-sex marriage.

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