If the Dems want to lose in 2020, Beto O'Rourke is the perfect candidate nypost.com/2018/12/06/if-… via @nypost
He’s not just another politician, we’re routinely told. He’s real! He used to play in a punk rock band! He skateboards into rallies! He looks like Bobby Kennedy in 1968! The Kennedys love him! He drinks beer and drives to his own campaign stops and curses from the podium!
Beto O’Rourke is just another politician. The media, by and large, should be ashamed for drooling over a candidate with presidential ambition rather than doing their job and scrutinizing him.
One example: No outlet truly pressed O’Rourke on his police record, which includes attempting to flee the scene of a car crash while drunken driving in 1998. During a debate with Cruz on Sept. 21, O’Rourke said, “I did not try to leave the scene of the accident” — a lie.
Even The Washington Post called him out, but O’Rourke’s claim went otherwise unnoticed, let alone unchallenged.
Nor have O’Rourke’s overall background and familial connections been much mentioned. How many voters know that his late father was a county commissioner and a county judge?
Or that his step-grandfather served as JFK’s secretary of the Navy, or that his father-in-law is a billionaire real-estate developer? Not many, because none of these biographical details squares with the portrait of the rebel Gen-Xer looking to shake up the system.
Yes, O’Rourke ran a smart campaign. He raised millions.
But he also shunned experts in favor of that punk-rock ethos, using the front of his minivan as a kind of campaign HQ. He refused to tack center. He quite possibly believed his own hype.
But he also shunned experts in favor of that punk-rock ethos, using the front of his minivan as a kind of campaign HQ. He refused to tack center. He quite possibly believed his own hype.
He campaigned in all of Texas’ 254 counties, had the national media in his pocket and still couldn’t put Ted Cruz away.
