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Beto O'Rourke makes his last attempt.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
This morning in Houston, the city that is absolutely essential to Beto O'Rourke's chances of being shocked by his candidacy for the US Senate, the candidate presented a passionate argument for the unpredictability of the elections. In front of a packed house at the House of Blues – O & # Rourke, former bassist, likes to play in concert halls. The Democrat spoke at length about cynics, experts, pollsters and consultants. and the investigators and those who are paid to read the tea leaves during these elections. "O 'Rourke rejected his advice – he refuses to take CAP donations and keeps a skeptical distance from the Democratic Party's national organizations – a point-of-sale center of his insurgent campaign against the outgoing president, Ted Cruz, a little Republican gave him a chance to beat early.
"The consensus we got from them, at least two weeks ago," said O'Rourke, "is that there are a lot of enthusiastic people, a lot of hope right now. People are inspired. … but does it become nothing? Is not Texas a red state?
In politics, if a candidate starts attacking experts and pollsters, it is because he is losing. Citing favorable data points – a high voter turnout, including a nearly five-fold increase in the number of young voters – O'Rourke spent the last week of the campaign making compelling arguments for an irrational optimism. But the Democrats had already taken this route, especially in 2016, when Hillary Clinton had too much confidence, in retrospect, based on a high number of anticipated votes. And for each data point cited by O'Rourke, there was one that went in the opposite direction.
In his speech to the House of Blues, he cited the enthusiastic turnout in Harris County, the huge area around Houston. Nearly 40% of registered voters cast ballots during the early voting period, twice the number of people who voted in the same period in the last mid-term election. But participation was even stronger in Collin County, the conservative populous area surrounding Plano, where nearly half of the voters voted early. In Texas, where a Democrat has not won the presidency of the state for a quarter of a century, an election with the same enthusiasm on both sides will likely be an election lost by O'Rourke.
Of course, O'Rourke is right in saying that unexpected events can happen on election day. One thing that is eminently predictable is the recriminations that may fly away if it does not win. Coincidentally or not, the day before his last visit to Houston, politico The magazine has published a scathing long feature film titled: "Beto Blow It?", Citing Democratic and Republican strategists, blaming it for not running towards the center against Cruz, claiming that O & # Rourke had let pass the # 39 opportunity to appeal to moderate Republicans have instead chosen to focus on its progressive positions on critical issues. For example, writer Tim Alberta has cited the famous viral video of O 'Rourke presenting a heartfelt monologue on the NFL player's protest right at the national anthem, reporting that the response had been prompted by a question from a person working on behalf of Cruz Campaign Advisor. The answer was perhaps more pleasant for Facebook crowds, suggested Alberta, than for the Texas electorate.
When I spoke to some Cruz advisers earlier this year, they said that what scared them the most about O'Rourke was his ability to collect huge sums, apparently without effort, with its devoted national supporters – a capacity that seems directly related to its desire to tap into the passions of national resistance. And it's hard to argue that O'Rourke should have followed the example of, for example, Phil Bredesen, who led a stubbornly centrist campaign against a Tea Party radical and is even further behind in polls than O & # 39; Rourke. Ironically, O'Rourke is partly a victim of his resounding success. If he had never captivated the imagination of the country's Democrats, arousing hopes and expectations, few would have worried about his loss.
"If we lose 10 points," says an unaffiliated Democratic strategist in Austin, who admires what O'Rourke did, "get ready for the circular firing squad".
At least one more day, the future remains unwritten. At the House of Blues, O 'Rourke marveled at having spent the campaign at "10 pm – and it's been 22 months that we're on the road". He begged his supporters to leave work, cut school – "you can learn this stuff later" – and walk down the street for an extra day of campaigning.
"Can a guy from El Paso, Texas, really do that?" O'Rourke asks rhetorically as he looks at the audience. "Here's your answer, Houston."
One voice called from the public
You better believe it!
The crowd burst with joy. O'Rourke smiled, for a moment without a voice, and bathed a moment longer in the spotlight shining from the roof.
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