Beto O 'Rourke says comments about his wife were "delivered to the ham"

2020 democrat hope Beto O 'Rourke said Friday night that critics about his "stubborn" comments about his wife were "completely correct". "Not only will I not say that again, but I will talk a lot more about my marriage," he said.

When recording the "Political Party Live" podcast at Cedar Rapids, he criticized the joke that his wife, Amy, had raised their three children "sometimes with my help". O 'Rourke made several comments during his election campaign during his first stint in Iowa, including earlier Friday, causing bursts of laughter every time, but he was also criticized for his insensitivity the challenges faced by single parents.

O & # 39; Rourke said "CBS This Morning "co-host Gayle King In an interview broadcast on Friday, while his wife and he were about to make the decision to run for president, the "best decision" was made by his wife.

She said: "There are a lot of people talking about us and doing a lot of different things, instead of trying to understand that now, let's spend some time with the family." That's really what we did, "O'Rourke said.

He added that his children would often offer "unsolicited" advice on running for president.

"Unsolicited, and honestly, I did not expect it, but I think they're just as sensitive to what's going on in the world right now," said O. Rourke. "They understand that they will inherit the consequences of the choices you and I are making right now, and they are counting on us to make the right choices."

O 'Rourke, 46, also stated that he was "mortified" by re-reading the violent fiction that he had written while he was a teenager, a new attention Friday, after that. A report from Reuters highlighted his involvement in a group of computer hackers in adolescence. O 'Rourke wrote a handful of posts on the group's message board under the name "Psychedelic Warlord", including a fiction article that he had written at the age of 15 on the fact that children were being run over by a car.

"I am mortified to read it now, incredibly embarrassed, but I must accept my words," he said. "Regardless of my intention, in adolescence, it does not matter, I have to look long and hard at my actions, the language I've used, and I have to constantly try to do better. "

After a previous campaign, O 'Rourke had stated that it was "things I was part of as a teenager".

"This is not something I am proud of today, and I mean, it is is long and short," he said. "All I can do is do my best, and that's what I'm trying to do, I can not control anything of what I've done in the past." I can only control what I do and what I intend to do: give it my best.

The comments were held on the second day of a presidential campaign during which O & Rourke seeks to establish himself as a unique voice in the race. He avoided what has become a tradition among contenders for 2020 by refusing to announce how much money he has raised in the 24 hours that followed the announcement of his candidacy. He said it would be soon.

"I do not have a specific plan," he added. "We are not ready to release them now."

The former Texas congressman entered the 2020 presidential race on Thursday after months of speculation. Last year, he raised $ 80 million in popular donations that caught his attention. failure of the US Senate race in Texas against Republican Ted Cruzwhile largely avoiding money from political action committees. His first fundraising figures will indicate whether his popularity during the Senate campaign will affect his candidacy for the White House.

Until then, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders set the tone for basic donations in 2020, pulling $ 6 million on his first day as a candidate.

When asked if he thought he would do better than Sanders, O'Rourke only replied, "We'll see."

O 'Rourke's reception during his first swing in Iowa was extremely positive, even though he launched his campaign by hitting a handful of counties that had gone from supporting Democratic Barack Obama to support of Republican Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Most of the cities visited by O. Rourke during his first two days in the state were small rural towns and manufacturing or agricultural cities. He ran for Keokuk (10,300), stopped in a private house in Fairfield, a city of about the same size, and jumped to the top of a coffee bar to talk to the crowd in Mount Pleasant (population 8,500).

The strategy has allowed O & # Rourke to stand out from the rest of the world. Many of them have focused their first steps on the population centers of the state or on the traditionally blue counties that make up the bulk of the Democratic primary electorate.

Norm Sterzenbach, who advises O & # 39; Rourke in Iowa, said this strategy stemmed from Texan's desire to make more intimate events during its first visit to Iowa.

"He did not want to make big gatherings or big events, he wanted to go to communities and really talk to Iowans, and he wanted to go to smaller cities, smaller communities and places that had been neglected" by politicians, he said. .

It was an approach that was reminiscent of his candidacy for the Texas Senate, where O 'Rourke had hit every one of the 254 counties in the state, even the most rural areas, some of which had not been visited by Democratic candidates for years. O 'Rourke is not committed to visiting all 99 counties in Iowa – which is locally known as "Full Grassley", according to the Senegalese Republican senator. Iowa, Chuck Grassley, who is famous for having beaten all his capital. as much of Iowa as possible.

This generalized strategy, which addresses everyone, brings it to three points of victory against Cruz in Texas, the country's largest Red State.