The last thing members of the Democratic Party need right now is perhaps their most appealing candidate — to moderate voters, that is — engaged in a head-to-head knockdown, drag-out fight with the party’s former nominee and potential upcoming candidate.

But that’s just what they have on their hands with the current blood match between Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton started the current fight last week in a podcast interview with former Obama staffer David Plouffe.

She made the bizarre, completely unproven, and counterfactual claims that Gabbard is “a Russian asset,” that Gabbard is “a favorite of the Russians,” and that the Russians are “grooming her to be the third-party candidate” in the 2020 presidential election.

Apparently not satisfied with having her similar charges against President Donald Trump debunked by former special counsel Robert Mueller and now looking like a laughingstock, Clinton has doubled down — this time attacking a very telegenic combat veteran and young leader of her own party.

This, of course, is a godsend to Gabbard.

It gets her massive free publicity and casts her as the plucky young underdog versus the vicious party hack.

Related: Gabbard Growls Back at Hillary, Dares Her to Run in 2020

What could possibly have caused Hillary to make such a stupefyingly odd and unsubstantiated claim?

The likely reason? Gabbard will not toe the Hillary line on the Kurds and on so much more. In 2016, she also resigned her position as a DNC co-chair because she thought the group was biased against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for Clinton.

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Plus, Gabbard is a contender for the party spotlight.

Think of the relationship between Snow White and the owner of the mirror. Uh huh.

The Russian asset charge was so outrageous it prompted this tweet from Sanders:

Then Gabbard herself responded to Hillary’s charge.

That did it.

Even several more of Gabbard’s rivals for the Democrat nod — such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and former
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) — came to her defense against Clinton.

Another defender? That would be the president of the United States.

“She’s not a Russian agent … These people (Team Clinton) are sick. There’s something wrong with them,” wrote Trump.

This time, he was not engaging in hyperbole.

Feeling the political wind at her back, Gabbard hit Clinton again on Sunday with this tweet:

Then she went in for a kill on the feud yesterday.

Through her rampant and vindictive paranoia, Clinton inadvertently has promoted the very woman she was trying to squash.

Gabbard has jumped on the gift, stating that she thinks — even though Clinton is not in the race — that the campaign comes down to her and the former secretary of State.

Now, you may be thinking, is this some kind of multi-dimensional chess move by Hillary?

How could a reputed Machiavellian like herself make this kind of blunder?

Sometimes politics can do strange things to otherwise logical and shrewd players — especially those who hold grudges at the very center of their souls.

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