Twitter is not reality. Fear of hashtag bullies is stupid. Nobody who matters cares about hashtags on Twitter.
Tulsi effortlessly turned the news cycle to her own advantage. If she'd qualified for the debate this week, it would have been a great week for her campaign.
Since she's not running to keep her House seat, the DNC can't threaten her with being "primaried", which was the tactic they used to keep the Dems in Trump-supporting districts in line and coerce their "yes" votes.
I liked her response to the question about how this non-vote might influence her Democrat base. She seems to be as tired of the tribalism and divided political landscape as most of us are.
Leadership is not marching in lockstep with your party. It's having the courage to actually do what the Dems only give lip service to: VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE.
Her "present" vote also represented Hawaii well, as opposed to the other House member who blindly parroted the Dem talking points. Any logical, intelligent person knows the impeachment vote was based on nothing more than a promise to impeach Trump if the voters turned out and gave the Dems a majority.
Thank goodness they didn't get the Senate, too.
The main criticism I have is she said, "I think Trump is guilty of wrongdoing." Wrongdoing?
Impeachment requires that he be proven guilty of a crime against the nation. Maybe he's done something wrong, but unless the "wrongdoings" are the basis of the articles of impeachment, her belief is irrelevant. I'd rather she stated he was guilty of "abuse of power" or "obstruction of Congress", just to be clearer. But, she left it up to interpretation by implying he was guilty of the charges made by the House.
She may have chosen those words to avoid pissing off the entire party by admitting the articles of impeachment were unsupported by the evidence presented.