The Courage of His Charisma

During the historic and critical 2018 mid-term elections, I really only had one eye on Beto O’Rourke’s attempt to become the first Democrat in Texas since like the invention of chewing tobacco to win a statewide race. For me his campaign against the truly odious Ted Cruz was a distant “nice to have” on an evening when most of my (ahem) thoughts and prayers were focused on the Democratic attempt to take back the House of Representatives, starting with my own vile "representative", Duncan Hunter, who could go toe-to-toe any day of the week with Cruz in a showdown of Deplorables. I caught enough of Beto’s time in the spotlight to understand where the excitement around him was coming from…most notably from his forthright, clarion clear stand with the NFL players taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest the epidemic of police killings of unarmed black men. Although the viral video of him making that statement may have hurt him at home in Texas by arming Cruz with a demagogic blunt instrument to attack him with, it raised Beto’s national profile sufficiently to help him raise record millions for his senate race and name recognition for a subsequent presidential race. Beto is not my first choice for the Democratic presidential nomination, maybe not even my second or third. But I’m glad he’s in the race and glad he’ll be on the debate stage…and hopeful that his role in the campaign to eradicate Trumpism will be significant. This, as has already become apparent, will not be easy. Since entering the presidential race, Beto has been under attack on two fronts. First from the media that, true to its tradition, believes that anyone it builds up, it can take down…and rather relishes doing both. Second, from the leftwing of the Democratic Party which sees Beto as too cozy with the energy industry and too lightweight when it comes to policy specifics. The overall attempt is to portray O’Rourke as a one-hit wonder--who, despite doing surprisingly well in Texas, still managed to lose to one of the most repugnant politicians in America. The combined effort has succeeded in keeping Beto down in the polls and taken some of the shine off his once rising star. Like many Democratic voters, I have largely taken a show me what you can do stance in this primary campaign…I’m all in on the risers, wary of the sinkers…and downright afraid of front runners with a track record for losing. But I recently found myself killing about 90 idle minutes in front of the HBO documentary Running with Beto, about O’Rourke’s losing campaign against Cruz and found it to be a welcome, revelatory reintroduction to the man. Aside from his oft-mentioned personal charisma, what comes across most in the documentary is his moral and physical courage. At one point he’s on the Texas-Mexican border, ground zero of the immigration crisis, calling out the “invading caravan” for the Trump/Fox News manufactured bullshit that it is while at the same time comforting the families of the separated and incarcerated. At another point he’s meeting with the mothers of black kids abused by police where he shares a story of his DUI arrest and own encounter with police to demonstrate first hand understanding of how blacks and whites are treated differently by law enforcement. He takes up common cause with the student survivors of the Santa Fe Texas school shooting that left 10 dead, vowing any help they want from him in defeating the gun lobby. That stance earns him and his family an attempted intimidation visit from two heavily armed, open-carry militants at one his campaign rallies. Later his wife has to explain to their kids why men with guns are mad at their father.  Even in a lighter, seemingly trivial moment, O’Rourke shines with particular luster. At a campaign event a prospective voter (or Republican troll) asks him how his early career as a punk rock musician qualifies him for the US Senate. There’s no sheepish smile of demur…no alibi about being so much younger then. Instead he smoothly responds that punk was a revolt against corporate control of the music industry just as his campaign is a revolt against corporate control of politics. When his stock was rising in 2018, it was common, especially among the media, to favorably compare his charismatic appeal to John F. Kennedy’s or Barack Obama’s. After watching this documentary, I’ve concluded that those comparisons are unfair…to Beto. Both JFK and Obama mostly exercised their charisma rhetorically from the stage or telegenically. O’Rourke took his charisma into one of the most openly hostile political environments imaginable and used it fully to press important points on highly emotional issues—patriotism, race, immigration, gun rights. He never flinches throughout and always maintains a sense of decency and reasonableness in advancing the causes he believes in. In the end he lost, but what he did to energize Democratic voters in Texas was truly remarkable. Because of his dedicated grass roots effort that took him to every one of Texas’s 254 congressional districts, Democratic turnout was the highest it’d been in quarter of a century. In a personally losing cause, he managed to inspire and engineer a stunning reversal of fortunes for Texas Democrats:

On Tuesday night, Cruz beat O’Rourke by just over two points. Back in 2012, Cruz beat his Democratic challenger by nearly 16 points. O’Rourke didn’t just close the gap. He didn’t just energize voters. He created an infrastructure of over 25,000 volunteers, many of them in places where there had been no formal Democratic presence for decades. Voter turnout in Texas reached 52.8% — surpassing the 2016 presidential election (51.6%) and blowing away turnout from the last midterm election (28.5%). In early voting, turnout among young people was estimated to be up a stunning five-hundred percent.

It’s infuriating to watch this very gifted politician be treated like yesterday’s news by the media and held to overbearing litmus tests by the purity wing of the Democratic Party. He seems to be going about his national quest for office much the way he went about his state run…organizing at the grass roots, building on social media, meeting face to face and carefully listening to voters…and would-be voters. That nuts and bolts, behind the scenes work will undergird his first national debate appearance this week. I have little doubt that he’ll be one of the few who will shine in the sea of Democratic contenders, and that will probably be reflected by a boost in his polling numbers. It may in the end not be enough to lift him to the Presidential nomination, but it should set him up nicely as Elizabeth Warren’s ideal running mate…or John Cornyn’s replacement in the Senate (if he pulls out of the presidential race in time to make the challenge). In either case…his demonstrated moral and physical courage on the campaign trail is as important as any policy paper, and the future seems bright for Betomania if not this year, soon enough.