Beto O'Rourke Will Be the Next President of the United States and Here's Why

 

SAN ANGELO, TX — The only thing standing between Democrat darling Beto O’Rourke and the White House is the severely divided and almost mortally wounded Republican Party of Texas and right now, that’s not enough.

Forget that Robert Francis O’Rourke lost to Senator Ted Cruz.

Forget that O’Rourke was no more influential in the U.S. House of Representatives in his three terms than a piece of furniture.

And forget that Beto’s campaign strategy was doomed from the start.

O’Rourke easily raised and spent $80 million in his losing effort. But his grassroots social media campaign registered hundreds of thousands of new voters. As it turns out, the vast majority of those newly registered voters were millennials who didn’t bother to cast a ballot.   Yet his Kennedy-like appeal ignited hopes and dreams Texas Democrats to a level not seen in 24 years.

The 46-year-old Irish Catholic convinced Hispanic Democrats in El Paso that he was one of them in a way Barack Obama, in the 2008 Democratic Party primary, convinced the faithful across the country that he was genuine and a better choice than their ‘most qualified’ candidate ever in Hillary Clinton.

O’Rourke drew huge crowds in large cities and in mid-sized counties and in rural coffee shops and cafes across Texas.  His striking good looks and Kennedy-esque demeanor wooed women of all ages. Many described Beto as the next Jack Kennedy.  

O’Rourke’s populist message resounded with millennials who admitted they knew next to nothing about politics or government but liked how Beto looked, sounded and acted.  "Beers with Beto" was a common gathering theme during his visits to all of Texas’ 254 counties. His easy use of the ‘F’ word and regular profanity would’ve been shunned just four years ago, but the new generation of social media addicts embraced his unorthodox hipster style.  

But with all the enthusiasm O’Rourke generated and the hundreds of thousands of millennials he registered to vote to include the $80 million he raised and spent, he still lost the senate race.  Liberal leaning Texas media analysts and national media pundits would have you believe the race was close. It wasn’t. While Robert Francis lost his race against incumbent Republican Senator Cruz, it wasn’t like Cruz ran away with the election either.  Republican insiders were predicting Cruz would easily win by double digits. When the final results were canvassed, Cruz won by a mere two percentage points.

Better luck next time Beto.  That was sarcastically shouted in hundreds of Texas Republican victory parties election night and beyond. But when the dust cleared and all the counting was done in all the races up and down the ballot, Beto’s battle was clearly lost, but the shattered remains of his loss piled up like unused confetti on the floors of dozens of incumbent Republican office holders who were defeated by the Beto effect on election night.

O’Rourke won the war.

Beto lost his battle but the Beto effect won Texas.  Red Texas. Republican Texas.

Sure, every statewide office is still held by a Republican after election day.  And the leadership of the sharply divided Republican Party of Texas breathed a deep sigh of relief. But what Beto did was gut the Republican Party of Texas stronghold on Texas down ballot court races.  The Beto effect flipped the Texas Courts of Appeals. Beto flipped the largest county in Texas. Harris County, where Houston is, elected a Democrat County Judge. Ft. Worth’s Tarrant County was the largest Republican County in Texas to turn from red to blue, Republican to Democrat on Beto’s coattails.  

The biggest win was the Texas Third Court of Appeals based in Austin. This court hears civil and criminal appeals from the third district of Texas which includes all lawsuits against the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature and challenges to the laws coming from it. The six-member court lost all four seats up for election. All of the Republican incumbents lost their seats to Democrats.  That means that in a state with a Republican Governor and a Republican Legislature, every lawsuit challenging legislation passed or bills signed into law will now be heard by a Democratic Party-controlled Appeals Court.

How significant was the Beto effect?

Every major city and county in Texas is now in Democrat hands. Houston in Harris County; San Antonio in Bexar County; the State Capitol of Austin in Travis County; El Paso in El Paso County; Dallas in Dallas County; and now Ft. Worth in Tarrant County.  If you look, a red and blue map of Texas before and after the November 2018 general election, the results are dramatic.

The Beto effect looks like a double-edged broadsword driven north from Laredo through the heart of Texas that also carved out a significant number of counties along the Mexican border, up the coast to Houston, and from Houston up I-45, and from Laredo up I-35 through the Metroplex including Ft. Worth and Dallas.  That was a fatal blow to Republican Texas.

That’s why Barack Obama met with Beto O’Rourke (B.O. met with B.O.?).  Forget that both are considered good looking populists. Forget that Obama and O’Rourke share almost meaningless legislative accomplishments before their first run for the Presidency.  None of that matters. It’s all about the perception, momentum and numbers.

The Republican Party of Texas is divided, as it always has been.  But there’s a difference now. RPOT Chairman James Dickey is a TEA Party leader.  He has aligned with Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Empower Texas group of Republicans who have been fighting to take over the party from what Tom Green County Republican Party Chairman Jeff Betty calls "real" Republicans, or the mainstream.  Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the TEA Party champion and ET leader.

Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott will be sworn in during a day long gala at the Capitol in Austin Jan. 15. including a BBQ and Performances from country music legend George Strait and fan favorite Aaron Watson.  The Swearing in ceremony is free. The BBQ and Inaugural Ball featuring Strait and Watson is not.

The Republican Party of Texas through the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) has been taken over by the ETs and the effects were felt on election night.  Real Republicans don’t like ETs. Real Republicans don’t support ET candidates. And unless Texas ETs and real Republicans can come together in the 2020 Presidential primary, a divided Texas GOP will surrender the state to Beto and the Democrats.  

While the RPOT is well aware of history, Democrat Ann Richards was Governor of Texas from 1991  to 1995. George W. Bush was Governor from 1996 to 2000.

The state of California has officially moved up its primary to March 3, 2020 which is Super Tuesday in an effort to be more influential in the selection of Democratic and Republican party candidates for President. That is significant because it forces candidates to campaign in a large state on the west coast at the same time they are campaigning in the small early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.  

Beto O’Rourke has momentum, name recognition, the ability to raise massive amounts of money and the support of Hollywood Celebrities and the media.  That gives O’Rourke the edge that every Democrat has enjoyed since Obama in 2008 and so much more. 

Where Texas goes politically in 2020, so goes the nation.  Texas Republicans have a choice. Texas Republicans have a chance.  If divided Texas Republicans can’t unite over the next 14 months, they will give Texas to Democrats in 2020 and Beto O’Rourke will be the next President of the United States.  And the Republican Party of Texas will be solely to blame.

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Seriously? There was no "Beto Effect" that brought liberals to the forefront in large metro goverenance. Influx from liberal hotbeds such as California and Florida, along with booming job markets drawing intrastate populace, is the primary causative factor of these liberal takeovers. Beto is a socialist in boots and jeans - appealing to less savvy voters, particularly amongst millenials and minorities. Realize that this is an opinion piece and as such great leeway is to be given. However, when an opinion is as far off target as this Greene piece is, it calls for an intervention!

What respect I held for Yantis is gone. Having said that, he is where he should be, catering to the audience he deserves, on perhaps the only vehicle that will carry him.

Why does everyone seem to forget that some millennials are in their late 30s and probably know quite a bit about politics?

I always knew little Yantis was a whimpering liberal. But, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Yantis, Since you’re a liberal, I’ll keep it simple for you....until you or your ilk abolish the Electoral College, Beatle Bailey Beto will not win the presidency. Furthermore, no Democrat will ever be president again. Your party has veered too far left to receive majority votes from states with common sense voters, like Texas. Poor little Yantis, he has fallen into the liberal trap and become a raving lunatic. Tell you what, little fella, stick to traffic reports and stay away from serious journalism, you lack the chops.

rpenn, Sun, 12/30/2018 - 17:19

With his back ground there is no way he would ever be President. I would vote for the devil himself be fore I would vote for him. I'm a died in the wool Republican,

Mr. Green, all you have to say is "Immigrant Caravan", or "Gun Control". Clearly you do not have the scare tactics experience. Beto O'Rourke is no threat to the established Democrats. The one thing both pawns of the ruling parties is, we are gluttons for punishment.

Also, Beto did not gut the Republican party, the fight for power between GOP moderates and the far right did.

There is a huge body of people, moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, who have no representation in our current government. Yantis Green very astutely observed that because of Beto's campaign, all the major urban areas in Texas voted Democrat, when it came to who would be our US Senator. That is because younger people and Hispanics, traditionally with a low voter turnout rate, showed up in force for this election. I do not believe O'Rourke will vault to a successful run for President in 2020, but I do believe he understands and represents a huge body of Texans and I am hopeful he will remain in public service, acquire some experience and seasoning, and someday run for a leadership positon. I was born and grew up in West Texas, several generations of ranching on both sides of my family, and I lived outside the State of Texas for 20 years. That was an education for me, but I returned to West Texas because this is the place I care the most about and would rather live than anyplace else. Kudo's to Yantis for a) recognizing a significant political shift in Texas, and b) having the courage to publicly state an opinion other than a far right wing view. It is much easier to agree with the vast majority of West Texas residents who hold an extremely conservative view than to state another, conflicting view. There was a time in our country, 30+ years ago, when people of all political persuasions could speak out without mass personal condemnation, when "liberal" and "conservative" were just adjectives that carried no stigma, and the political debate was much more respectful of the individual regardless of views than it is today. Divisiveness is killing our great country and we all need to listen to each other.

Brother if you can get hispanos to vote I'll put on a wig marry a drag king and run for dog catcher. We can worry about who they vote for later tho around here everybody works so probly for whoever lets everybody keep there paycheck.

There was no internet, no social media. The opinion of the "average Joe" was limited in range to those within hearing distance. It was much easier for folks do dismiss a dissenting opinion or political persuasion back then.
Our little information devices give us access to much too much of what other folks think, contributing greatly to the divisiveness you conclude is killing our nation. Listening to each other may not be the answer, we're already doing that.

I agree we are bombarded by much more information than was available 30 years ago, but I also believe that people had more of an open mind and were willing to consider the opinions of others, instead of dismissing them out of hand if those opinions differed from their own. As a country, we are much more close minded now than we were 30 years ago.

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