Tag Archives: Beto O’Rourke

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Beto gets ’em fired up early

The media and political fascination with Beto O’Rourke has commenced. It’s at full throttle already.

The former West Texas congressman announced his presidential candidacy this week, jetted off to Iowa and had the political media following his every move.

I heard one commentator gushing over how physically attractive he is and how O’Rourke already has ignited the national flame much as he did in Texas when in 2018 he came within a whoop and a holler of defeating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

None of this early excitement is surprising. O’Rourke presents a different type of presidential challenger. He nearly defeated Cruz in a heavily Republican state. He ran close and hard with nary a political adviser to be found; he had no pollsters; he toured every one of Texas’s 254 counties.

He is pledging to do something similar as he runs for president. Good luck with that, young man.

I remain fervently on the fence regarding Beto O’Rourke. I am inclined to want to support him. I am just not there. I don’t know if I’ll get there. I’m thinking hard about it, along with the rest of the already-gigantic field of Democrats lining up for the chance run next year against Donald Trump.

The media fascination in a strange way seems to mirror the fascination they showed toward Trump as he announced his candidacy in 2015.

I don’t expect O’Rourke, though, to inflame animosity the way Trump did, even though the president likely owes the media debt of gratitude for elevating him from carnival barker to serious presidential candidate.

Welcome to the big time, Beto O’Rourke. This will be wild ride.

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Beto has one distinct advantage over rest of huge field

As I ponder the impact of Beto O’Rourke’s entry into the burgeoning Democratic Party presidential primary field, I keep thinking of a distinct advantage he holds over most of the rest of the thundering herd.

He doesn’t have a job at the moment.

Beto once served in Congress. He represented El Paso in Congress for three terms. Then O’Rourke decided to give up his House seat. He ran for the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. O’Rourke ignited the Texas Democratic Party, which had been in a state of slumber, er . . . stupor for the past three decades.

O’Rourke almost won!

Now he wants to take the fight to an even higher level. He wants to become president of the United States.

He is running against a lot of U.S. senators, some governors and others who are gainfully employed. Beto doesn’t have a job.

One of the points he sought to make while losing narrowly to Cruz was that the junior senator from Texas spent too much time running for president and too little time casting votes in the Senate.

The many folks who are running against him for president in next year’s Democratic primary will be unable to slather him with mud from that particular pit. He’s jobless at the moment and can devote his waking moments full time to the task of running for POTUS.

He’ll be able to parlay that advantage at least for a little while.

Then he well might have to cope with another high-powered politician with no gainful employment.

Joe Biden? Are you out there?

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Beto’s big announcement is the real thing

I guess Beto O’Rourke’s “big announcement” is going to be what everyone in America suspected it would be.

The former West Texas congressman is going to run for president of the United States of America. He is going to make the announcement on Thursday.

OK. Now what? How am I supposed to feel about this? I’ll be candid: I am not sure yet how I feel about a President O’Rourke.

I can explain this a couple of ways. Compared to the man who’s currently in the office, I feel better about Beto and I do about Donald, as in Trump.

Beto O’Rourke is No. 13 among the Democrats who have declared their intention to seek their party’s presidential nomination in 2020. More will be jump into the moat. There will be at least one more major candidate to announce: former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

Beto captured many Texans’ imagination when he nearly beat Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. That he was able to finish just a couple of percentage points behind the Cruz Missile in heavily GOP Texas still has state Democrats salivating.

Now he’s going to enter the huge field of Democrats.

I sense a certain sort of Bobby Kennedy freneticism in Beto’s candidacy. Just as RFK scrambled to assemble a presidential campaign in 1968 and ran a frenzied race for 85 days before tragedy struck, I sense that Beto might be modeling his 2020 after Robert F. Kennedy.

As an aside, I should note that the late New York senator’s name was Robert Francis Kennedy; Beto’s proper name is Robert Francis O’Rourke. Karma, anyone?

I’ll need to hold my breath for Beto’s entry. I wanted him to defeat Sen. Cruz. I am not yet convinced he is ready for the Big Chair in the Big Office.

However, I can be persuaded.

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‘Big announcement’ coming from Beto?

Beto O’Rourke’s political team says the former West Texas congressman is planning a “big announcement.” It will come perhaps later this week.

Everyone this side of the Trans-Pecos believes O’Rourke is going to announce he is running for president of the United States in 2020. Yep, that’s a big announcement, all right.

Think about an alternative.

Is it a “big announcement” for Beto to say that after all the deliberation with his wife Amy and their friends and confidants that he’s decided to wait until 2024?

Donald Trump is certain to be gone by then. Perish the thought that he actually runs for re-election and wins next year. Anything is possible, as Trump’s election in 2016 demonstrated in all its narcissistic glory.

Run, Beto. Run?

O’Rourke, who once represented El Paso in the U.S. House and came within a cow chip toss of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz this past year, is showing all the signs of becoming a presidential candidate in 2020.

I just want to suggest that a “big announcement” can arrive in more than one form.

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How might Joe Biden channel The Gipper? Here’s how

Joe Biden is the political star of the moment.

Democrats are waiting with bated breath for the former vice president to declare his expected candidacy for the presidency of the United States. He’s dropping hints all over the place that he’s decided to make one final run for the top job.

Oh, and then we have former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke who’s playing a similar cat-and-mouse game with Democrats and the media. He, too, is sounding and looking like a candidate in the making.

Here’s my thought about all of that.

Biden is in his late 70s; Beto is in his mid-40s. I harken back to 1976 when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan challenged President Ford for the Republican presidential nomination.

Gov. Reagan shook things up a good bit by naming Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Richard Schweiker as his running mate prior to the GOP nominating convention in Kansas City, Mo.

Is there an avenue for Biden to select O’Rourke as his VP running mate and the two of them could run as a ticket for the Democratic Party’s nomination next year?

Oh, probably not. If they both run for POTUS, they’re going to run against each other. Then one of them will drop out. Maybe they both will, which of course makes this whole notion a moot point.

But suppose Biden’s support among rank-and-file Democratic voters holds up and he secures the nomination next year in Milwaukee. I could see him declare that he would serve just one term and then he could select someone such as Beto as his running mate.

Biden would be the candidate who could clear out the Trump wreckage. Beto would be the candidate of the future who could carry Biden’s message past the president’s single term.

This is not a prediction. It’s merely a scenario that has played out before. Granted, Ronald Reagan didn’t get the GOP nomination in 1976. He laid the groundwork, though, for his 1980 campaign and subsequent landslide victory over President Carter.

I believe that if Biden runs, this will be it. If so, then he could have a ready-made successor waiting in the wings.

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Looks like Beto’s running for POTUS

If you put a gun to my head and said “Make your prediction about Beto O’Rourke … or else,” I am likely to say that Beto is running for president of the United States in 2020.

Why else would be stand in front of a South by Southwest crowd in Austin today and tell ’em he’s made up his mind, but just isn’t ready to divulge what he has decided to do.

It sounds to me as though O’Rourke is lining up his ducks, assembling his campaign organization.

Run, Beto, run?

I mean, think about it! Were he not going to run, why would he have any reason to delay announcing a decision. If he’s going to stay home, find other work, do something else he would just say so. Isn’t that right? Does that make as much sense to you as it does to me?

So, Beto — who nearly beat Sen. Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate seat from Texas in 2018 — likely is going to jump into the massive and still growing Democratic Party primary field that wants to challenge Donald John Trump for president.

I beg you, though, dear reader. Please don’t hold me to this if O’Rourke decides to stay home in El Paso.

My so-called “prediction” is based on a hypothetical circumstance. Please remember that if he decides against running for president.

national news, political news, State news

Waiting for Beto’s decision

I think it’s a good bet that Beto O’Rourke, who says he’s made his decision regarding the 2020 political season, is not going to run for a seat on the El Paso County Commissioners Court.

Nor is he running for the U.S. Senate against John Cornyn, the senior Texas Republican senator.

Oh, I get it! He’s going to announce he is running for president of the United States. Is that it? Sure it is! Or so many observers are saying.

I am trying to get excited about it. I am not there. At least not yet.

O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. He got Texas Democrats all fired up. He gave them hope that if a Democrat can come within a couple of percentage points of winning a statewide race, then perhaps there will be a chance for the party to break the GOP vise grip on the political structure.

But is the young man, a former El Paso congressman, ready for the Big Show? A big part of me wonders if he’s up for the biggest job on Earth.

Were he to be nominated and then run against Donald Trump for the presidency, O’Rourke would have my support. I just wonder if he’s able to defeat a gigantic field of Democrats lining up to take down the president of the United States.

He’s going to liven this contest up . . . even more than it is already.

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Will he or won’t he run for POTUS?

I am on pins and needles waiting for Beto O’Rourke to tell us whether he is running for president of the United States in 2020.

Well, actually, I’m not. I am amazed, though, at the excitement that a potential Beto candidacy is ginning up among Democratic partisans as the field for the presidential election keeps growing.

O’Rourke seems like a fine young family man. He represented El Paso, Texas, in Congress for three terms. Then he ran for the Senate in 2018 and came within a couple of percentage points of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz, the sometimes-fiery Republican incumbent.

That a Democrat could come as close as O’Rourke did in 2018 to upsetting a GOP incumbent still has politicos’ attention. Thus, they are waiting Beto’s decision.

He says he’ll let us know by the end of the month whether he intends to seek the presidency, which is just a few days down the road.

The political world awaits.

I remain decidedly mixed about Beto’s possible candidacy. I wanted him to win his race against Cruz. I think he would be a fine U.S. senator.

And, maybe, one day he will make an equally fine president of the United States. Still, there’s just something a bit too green about Beto.

Do his policies bother me? No. I consider myself a center-left kind of fellow. Thus, I don’t see Beto as a flame-throwing progressive bad-ass. He’s not a socialist — closeted or otherwise.

However, he seems to be trading on the excitement he built with his Senate run, believing possibly that he can parlay that into a national campaign.

I just don’t know

That all said, I’ll repeat what I’ve stated already: If he were to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and then face off in the fall of 2020 against Donald John Trump, he would have my support all the way to the finish line.

He just isn’t the perfect candidate to take on Donald Trump.

I’m still waiting for Mr. or Ms. Political Perfection — or a reasonable facsimile — to jump out of the tall grass.

Donald Trump

Donald vs. Beto: battle of crowd size?

Donald Trump will stage a rally soon in El Paso to talk about his desire to build The Wall along our southern border.

Beto O’Rourke, who might challenge Trump in 2020, is going to stage a counter rally to say that his hometown is safer than Trump is saying it is.

So, how might we compare these two events?

Trump likes to boast about the size of his crowds. If he pulls more listeners than O’Rourke, you can bet the farm he’ll highlight that aspect of his rally. If O’Rourke’s crowd is larger, well, POTUS will keep quiet about it.

Consider this factoid, which might not matter at all: Trump’s 2016 percentage of the presidential vote in El Paso County totaled 26 percent. Beto did a whole lot better than that in his 2018 campaign effort against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

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Who’ll be left to, um, legislate?

One of the negative points that former Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke sought to make against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 was that Cruz spent too much time running for president and too little time casting votes on behalf of Texans.

Interesting point, yes? Sure it is!

But . . . get a load of this: Five current U.S. senators and one U.S. House member already are running for president of the United States in 2020. A sixth Democratic senator is getting ready to announce her presidential candidacy.

Does the criticism that O’Rourke leveled against Cruz carry any weight when it is thrown at the growing herd of Democrats getting ready to run against Donald Trump over the next year?

And get this, there might be even more members of Congress jumping into this mob. The Senate comprises 47 Democrats. I count at least nine, maybe 10 of them either already running or preparing to run for president. Think of it: 20 to 25 percent of the Senate Democratic caucus could be running for the party’s presidential nomination. Wow!

Hey, members of Congress have every right to seek higher office. I don’t begrudge them for seeking the chance to do better than the incumbent. In this instance, as it pertains to the current incumbent president, that isn’t much of a stretch.

Still, it does open each of them up to the same criticism that Beto tossed at Ted Cruz in 2018.

Just sayin’, man.