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Adapted from the DIY ethic of the punk scene he had been involved with as a teenager in Texas, the 45-year-old candidate explained by launching his campaign in 2017: "When you publish your own records and book your With your own tours and your own songs, you control what you say. The campaign is the same thing. As O'Rourke embarked earlier in the year on a 34-day tour of the state, serving as a pilot and DJ on the dashboard …Houston Chronicle said: "This is a new notebook, born of the democratic futility of Texas." This new notebook has been an excellent field guide for 2018.5
"Who would have thought the Texas Senate race would be competitive?" Surprised veteran election analyst Larry Sabato. September 21, day of the first debate between the candidates, during which O'Rourke more than held against Cruz, the Cook political report moved the Texas race from "Leans Republican" to "Toss-Up". The change comes as polls show that O'Rourke behaves even with the outgoing GOP incumbent. Most surveys still place Cruz slightly ahead. But the cook The analysis was based on O'Rourke's dynamics – and on money. Although Cruz is one of the most prodigious fundraisers of contemporary politics, supporters of O 'Rourke's base had, in August, provided the challenger with almost as much campaign money as the outgoing president. : $ 23.3 million collected by O & # Rourke in the last 15 months. $ 25.9 million raised since the end of 2012 by Cruz. In announcing that his campaign is "what democracy looks like," the Democrat said he had attracted 215,714 individual donations, representing an average of $ 33, in the second quarter of 2018. That's the # 1 39 needed money in Texas, a state with 20 media markets and where the Democrats have struggled for years to hold their position in the televised "advertising wars" that conclude fall contests. As the Cook political report suggests now, there is a path to victory for O'Rourke that is "difficult but not totally impossible".6
This excited the Democrats across the country. The chaos and crisis of the Trump administration – along with the president's approval ratings and the polls of congressional polls showing up to eight more points to the Democrats – suggested the possibility of overthrowing the House early in the year. the 2018 campaign. But the idea of removing the Republican Senate from Mitch McConnell was initially rejected, while 24 Democratic seats were to be filled, compared to only nine for the Republicans. The Texas playoff, however, changes the calculation. If O & # Rourke wins and Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Jacky Rosen seize Republican-occupied seats in Arizona and Nevada, the party could afford to lose a vulnerable president (as Joe Donnelly of Indiana or Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota) and start 2019 with a majority of 51 to 49 years. For example, when a Reuters / Ipsos / UVA Center for Politics poll of September 19 gave O'Rourke a two-point lead over Cruz, social media alerts were broadcast across the country.7
TThis is another reason why Democrats should pay attention to O'Rourke's rise. His campaign represents a real-time experience for a party that is still struggling to define itself in the Trump era. This experiment rejects the lukewarm advice of Democratic strategists who, since the advent of the so-called New Democrats of the 1980s, have led the pretenders of the party's red state to a bland "we are not as bad as the others ". . Instead of making empty calls to a few voting voters, O'Rourke seeks to mobilize millions of disengaged, disillusioned and discriminated people. While the Congressman is always polite or even courteous on occasion, he practices a flawless policy style that sets him apart from other candidates, not just contenders that Texas Democrats sacrificed in Senate elections . but among party candidates to positions in most red states (and many blue states).8
O 'Rourke bets on the long-awaited promise of Texas: that a demographic wave will eventually make Lone Star's policy evolve beyond the cruel conservatism of the past, which once took up residence in the segregationist sectors of the United States. Former Democratic Party. now firmly anchored in the GOP of Cruz and Trump. There is growing evidence that what author Steve Phillips and the group of activists who support O & # 39; Rourke, Democracy for America, call a coalition of "New American Majority" composed of Latinos, African-Americans, Americans of Asian descent, women and young people are transforming Texas politics. . In 2016, Hillary Clinton did the same thing as in the traditional state of Ohio on the battlefield – and her percentage in Texas was better than in the state of Iowa on the battlefield.9
But while the trend lines are improving, the Democrats are still waiting for a victory. So, O'Rourke has set up what he admits to be a "Hail Mary" campaign. He threw caution not only at the consultants he denounced, but also at his early days in politics, when he was a developer-friendly member of the El Paso City Council, and then just a congressman who 2016, congratulated Bernie Sanders but gave his superdelegated vote to Clinton.ten
O'Rourke is not the only prominent Democrat to recognize that the party should become bigger and more daring in 2018. But there is no doubt that he has grown taller and more daring than anyone expects of him. a Senate candidate in Texas. While O'Rourke has always taken firm stand against the war on drugs and for unprecedented action against climate change, he is coming this year as a full-fledged progressivist: some who place the right to abortion and gun control at the center of his campaign; embraces unions and civil rights groups; seeks to "end the militarization of our immigration control system"; discusses the need to "strengthen antitrust rules that break monopolies"; and states that "a single-payer Medicare for All program is the best way to guarantee all Americans the health care they need." Cruz rips O 'Rourke for his "far left positions – more left positions of Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or Nancy Pelosi. But Texas populist Jim Hightower, who was twice the state's agriculture commissioner in the last wave of the 1980s, sees the problem less as a case from left to right. recognize the deep frustration of voters vis-à-vis the two main parties. "You have a Democratic constituency that is tired of it, not just of Trump, but of the centrist democrat establishment, wacky and ignorant. And they are looking for real change, "says Hightower, who says" Beto represents that ".11
O'Rourke's campaign is not bad. Asked in July about President Trump's disastrous visit to Europe, which resulted in an astonishing obsequious display of Russian President Vladimir Putin, O'Rourke's response was much more daring than Pelosi's, Sanders' or Warren. "Stay on stage in another country with the leader of another country that wants to undermine and who seeks to undermine this country and to rank on his side in the United States – if I was asked to vote on this point, I would vote to dismiss the president, said the Texan. A month later, at Houston City Hall, O'Rourke was asked if he thought the NFL players were wrong to "kneel" during the national anthem. "My short answer is no, I do not think it is disrespectful," he replied, before offering his "longer answer" to the public, from an overwhelming majority of whites.12
He asked them to think about "peaceful and non-violent protests, including kneeling down at a football match to point out that unarmed black men; unarmed black teens; and unarmed black children are being killed at a frightening level right now, including by law enforcement personnel, without accountability or justice. And this problem, as serious as it is, will not be solved alone. And frankly, they are frustrated by people like me and by people who have the trust of the public and the power, who have not been able to solve this problem and do justice to what has been done and to stop it from continuing in this country … And so, peacefully and without violence, while the eyes of this country are watching these games, they kneel down to catch our attention and focus on this problem to make sure we solve it … . I can not think of anything more American than getting up peacefully or kneeling to defend your rights anytime, anywhere, anywhere. "13
NBA star Lebron James praised O & # Rourke for his "candid and thoughtful words!", But Cruz said the "perception of what is" American "by his rival is totally flawed". Nothing more American? Liberal Hollywood was delighted. But do the Texans agree? The answer came from places like Plano, in Collin County, North Texas, which supported Trump 56-39 in 2016 and where local lawmakers and congressional representatives are GOP faithful. When O'Rourke arrived at Plano in mid-September, after declaring that he would vote to dismiss Trump, after stating that there was nothing more American than taking one knee, and a few hours after decrying the murder of Botham Jean, thousands of people came forward. . They chanted "Beto! Be at! Beto! "So strong that it was difficult to hear the candidate declare:" We are defying the conventional wisdom. "14
O 'Rourke went on to challenge conventional wisdom a few days later when he debated Cruz. The outgoing president, a champion of academic debate who has the reputation of verbally shredding his opponents, claimed that Mr. O. Rourke was disconnected from the "Texas values". The Democrat replied, "Only one of us went to every Texas county. O & # 39; Rourke then recalled that Cruz had "visited each of the 99 counties of Iowa". The senator listened with the forced smile of his father. a man who suffers. He explained how the views of Mr. O. Rourke "do not match what the people of Texas want." . That is what Senator Cruz would do, thanks to the contributions he has received from these political action committees. He works for law enforcement and business and special interests. He does not work for the people of Texas. "15
"Clampdown" is the good anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-business song written by pioneering punk band Clash in the late 1970s, when Margaret Thatcher turned Britain against herself. The reference was a wild burn, knowingly applied by a punk rocker who became a candidate for one of the most culturally unconscious US Senate members. Ted Cruz did not know what was hitting him.16
