'He's Like, Okay, Well, Screw It' (Beto O'Rourke)

[brooklynite]

BOSTON—Beto O’Rourke last week stopped here for beers. He wasn’t hunting big-dollar donors or votes in a state with a meaningful primary. He instead wanted to stand on a box in the middle of a pub and just let it rip. So that’s what he did. The crowd was young, diverse and notably not reaching to write checks, but they were plenty ready to hear his profane riff on his proposed gun buybacks. He downed a Ricochet IPA while answering their questions and then took his place in the picture line and ordered another. Two women joined him in raising their pints. “Salud,” he said.

For a one-time Democratic darling who hasn’t sniffed double digits in the polls for months, this brewery called Backlash didn’t seem like a materially strategic, smart spot to be in the run-up to a debate night that might for him be do-or-die. But O’Rourke’s clearly not doing the obvious anymore.

In the wake of August 3, when a bigot with an AK-47 murdered 22 people in a Walmart in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso, the former congressman has changed the way he’s waging his presidential campaign. He’s running with arguably reckless abandon, breaking norms to try to rekindle some lost spark. Beyond his much-discussed uptick in swearing, he has traveled to places that make limited political sense, taken a provocative proposal on assault-style rifles that could permanently jeopardize his electoral viability in his native state, and trashed President Trump with increasingly explicit rhetoric. What’s interesting about O’Rourke at this moment is not just that he’s saying fuck a whole bunch—he’s always dropped curse words on the stump—but that he’s entered more broadly a new phase of his 2020 bid, which supporters find inspiring and critics consider desperate to the point of pathetic. Up close, though, it feels actually pretty compelling.

Let’s go ahead and call it Beto’s “fuck-it phase.”

“That’s where I think he’s at now,” Moses Mercado, a Democratic lobbyist from Texas, told me. “He’s like, okay, well, screw it.”

[liskddksil]

1. You should have a source in your post

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/10/beto-orourke-campaign-2020-carefree-228047

Article is generally fair, but underestimates the support for the gun reforms that Beto is proposing; Are all now at majority support or greater.

[brooklynite]

2. Fair enough, but that's not translating into support for him...

The problem is that advocates of gun reform don't care ENOUGH to make it a primary factor in their voting behavior, unlike gun rights advocates.

[Amimnoch]

9. Sorry, i think he.. shot himself in the foot here.

Up until last week I was very much a Beto advocate. His proposals on background checks are great. However, once he turned to mandatory buy-back programs, I no longer see a path to winning. Great idea, but as a campaign position? Toxic.

All of my support for him was 100% based on turning Texas into a battleground where a win for him could also have been a win for us in the senate. The whole "Texan" vs "New York businessman" angle could have edged him right over into a Texas win due to the ridiculous state level form of nationalism we have in this state.

Now though? Sorry, but his mandatory buy back program lost his Texas edge. If he takes the nomination, the GOP will flood the airwaves and every other form of media with that bullshit "he wants to take your guns" angle.. Additionally, all evidence shows that the other swing states aren't going to receive that message well.. the American north west? Florida? Arizona? I see the uninformed voters swallowing that "he's going to take your guns" angle hook, line, and sinker. Sure it'll help him in the more solidly blue states of the west coast and New England/North east, but those aren't the states NEEDED to get that electoral college 270.

I LOVE his message, but I think it was a HORRIBLE move for him.

[liskddksil]

12. A majority of American's support a mandatory buy back

Beto is showing the most leadership on this issue of anyone running.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/sept-2-5-2019-washington-post-abc-news-poll/d4e18b36-79bf-492d-91e3-d1c7a49d37e2/

[Amimnoch]

19. Majority in Texas? Majority in Ohio? Majority in Wisconsin? Majority in Pennsylvania?

In case you missed it, the majority don't get to pick the president. Else we'd have had President Gore in 2000. We'd have President Clinton right now.

I live in Texas. I don't believe for a second the majority here in Texas would support it for one second. I do, but I don't believe the majority of Texans would. I believe there would be pretty good support in the traditionally blue areas of Austin, DFW, El Paso, and here in Houston. I strongly suspect there will be less enthusiasm in San Antonio, and Corpus Christi/southern border blue areas. I do strongly believe that it will energize the remainder of "red" Texas against him. I have family, and fairly regularly visit said family in both Ohio and Wisconsin. I don't believe that holds true for both those states as well. The gun nut culture is strong in those states.

I can believe that it's possible that a majority in Pennsylvania and Michigan would go for it, but I've seen no data that either supports or refutes that.

It's about the swing states that will determine who our next president will be, not about the majority of America. I'd think this would be painfully obvious by now.

[liskddksil]

20. New Texas Poll shows majority support for assault weapons ban

68% Support
32% Oppose

https://latinodecisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Univision-UH-Texas-crosstabs-Sept-2019.pdf

[brooklynite]

23. Not the same as a mandatory buy back...

...and "support" doesn't mean "will vote for as a top issue".

[liskddksil]

24. Mandatory buyback is over majority support nationwide. nt

[brooklynite]

27. And if we voted nationwide that might be relevant...

We vote State by State. Is it a majority in an aggregation of States that total 270 EV

[liskddksil]

28. So wait for some state polls to be released then. If assault weapons ban

is already at 68% percent support in Texas than mandatory buyback is probably over 50%.

[left-of-center2012]

3. 'He's Like, Okay, Well, Screw It'

He's polling in the low single digits.

[liskddksil]

4. He's in the top 5 or 6 and in both Fall debates

"Finished? we're just getting started."

[left-of-center2012]

5. He's on fire

[liskddksil]

7. He is!

Link to tweet

[Bayard]

6. Not sounding exactly presidential

Is he saying, screw it, so he can say whatever he wants? Because he knows he's not getting the nomination anyway?

I'm all for it unless it hurts the party.

[liskddksil]

8. He's showing more leadership than anyone running right now on Guns and Trump's racism nt

[left-of-center2012]

10. Does America want a President who goes around saying "Fuck"?

Fuck this.

Fuck that.

It'll get Beto attention but not votes, in my humble opinion.

[liskddksil]

11. Americans want authenticity and emotion from their leaders nt

[left-of-center2012]

13. No

Americans want a president in whom we can be proud,
and not one who debases the office even further than Trump by cussing up a storm.

And with that
I say
bye bye

[liskddksil]

15. American's want a leader! And Beto has been that leader since the tragegy in El Paso. nt

[NYMinute]

16. He never used that word when he was in office

and if elected, he will not use it in official statements and at official events.

[Tipperary]

18. Well put.

[Nevermypresident]

31. I don't agree that any Democrat candidate, including Beto, could POSSIBLY

come close to debasing the office as trump has.

[Turin_C3PO]

32. Lol.

Beto most certainly would not debase the office as Trump has. That’s an ignorant statement.

[JI7]

17. he doesn't go around saying it everywhere. this was used to show how fucked up

it was that we were not doing anything in gun control. and to point out how people get outraged by the wrong things.

[dalton99a]

29. +1. He never used it as a public official.

[NYMinute]

14. Beto is authentic and his langauge relates to people under 50.

The F word is used far far more in a non-sexual context in contemporaneous language to express disgust.

His disgust for the gun situation is palpable and I'm glad he is showing it like no one else can.

[dalton99a]

26. +1

Mayor Pete is too modest:

Lis Smith bursts through the doors of a marbled hotel bar in Brooklyn wearing oversized Anna Wintour sunglasses, a faux-fur-lined coat and impossibly thin and tall high heels. She’s on her phone talking to another Buttigieg aide. She puts the word fuck through every part of speech the word can be bent into: noun, pronoun, gerund, verb, term of endearment, sobriquet, epithet, honorific. She is practically shaking with excess energy. I tell her that I have been calling around to former coworkers and associates, trying to get a sense of how she operates. “How badly," she asks me, “are you trying to fuck me over right now?”

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/29/lis-smith-buttigieg-2020-president-campaign-manager-226756

“The first phase was just getting people to understand how to pronounce this impossible to pronounce Maltese last name,” Lis Smith, a senior adviser to the campaign who has been with Buttigieg from the start, told BuzzFeed News. “The second phase was to blow everyone out of the water on fundraising — everyone out of the fucking water. Done. Done. Now the third phase is blow them out of the water with our organization and our organizational abilities.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/henrygomez/pete-buttigieg-2020-campaign-phase

[Docreed2003]

30. +1

[aikoaiko]

21. It's totally working for him. He's up in the polls. Once 2.1% now 2.3%.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

[liskddksil]

22. Get back to me in January on polls

Link to tweet

[aikoaiko]

25. OK.