The BooTrib Old Line Democratic Club (hereafter known as the OLD Club) has come at least semi-alive here with its opposition to Beto O’Rourke…and of course to me. To AG, that far-right spy/sympathizer/secret arch-conservative activist who was dropped into Booman Tribune by some unnamed but undoubtedly nefarious interests over 15 years ago, just waiting for a chance to turn overturn the so-called “progressive” applecart.
Must’a been them damned Russkies!!!
Not.
“Whadda buncha maroons!!!”, as Bugs Bunny was wont to say in the heyday of Warner Bros. cartoon history.
They are busily piling on at present with a tidal wave of comments…36 so far, only one day into the life of a post called “Since AG has used this site as a Beto O’Rourke fan club…”. (http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2019/1/27/121246/813)
Great work, OLDsters!!!
Also not.
So…
I am going to post an article from Politico that does a fair job of looking at O’Rourke’s various upsides…especially his ability to circumvent the Deep State-owned-and-operated major mass media, which can reliably be counted upon to oppose anybody who might be considered out of their influence and control.
Read on…if you can handle it.
Or not.
P.S. I would seriously advise the various members of the OLD Club to keep their inhalers handy. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any serious wheezing fits that might occur while facing the inevitable future.
That’s right…I said inevitable!!!
Maybe O’Rourke won’t succeed this time. In fact, maybe he won’t even run. He has repeatedly stated his intent to wait on things, and he has also repeatedly stated his concern for what a presidential run might do to his young family. Any way it goes down (short of a military coup and/or the end of internet freedom, of course), eventually some Dem presidential candidate is going to bypass the other, original OLD Club…the clickbait mass media and their controllers/owners…and make his or her case directly to an increasingly dissatisfied electorate.
Watch…if you can still see, of course.
Read on. (Emphases mine):
Beto O’Rourke’s road trip drives home his message
His musings might be mocked but he’s generating a torrent of media coverage. By DAVID SIDERS 01/19/2019 06:54 AM EST
Beto O’Rourke is five states into his stream-of-consciousness road trip across the American Southwest, unaccompanied as he drops into a small-town diner for cobbler, washes his face in a lake and journals about the need to “clear my head.”
All of which is unfolding as the rest of the Democratic presidential field has broken into a sprint — Elizabeth Warren to New Hampshire, Kirsten Gillibrand to Iowa, and Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker to South Carolina.
O’Rourke’s potential rivals are courting donors, assembling staffs and scurrying to early primary states, while the former Texas congressman is at the Pancake House in Liberal, Kansas, some 500 miles from Des Moines.
His absence from the fray has been noted — and his introspective writing style has been mocked. But amid much snickering, there is also evidence to suggest that if he does run for president, it could help him politically, advancing his off-beat brand.
“Beto is able to drive his own message,” said Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager. In a political environment where “the person is the message,” Mook said, “what makes him snacky for [the media] inevitably makes him refreshing and different for voters … The press writes about what Beto decides to do on his own, not in the context of Trump. That’s a big deal.”
With his online following, O’Rourke remains close to the 2020 conversation regardless of his location. And in the span of several days, he has generated a torrent of media coverage that — unlike Democrats in more public settings — he alone can control.
Officials at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, in Goodwell, said they only learned about two hours beforehand that O’Rourke was coming to campus, when an aide called to alert them. The school prepared a room, and several dozen students turned out, said Ryan Blanton, the university’s vice president of outreach.
Blanton, busy with telephone calls after the visit, said, “It got a lot more attention than we were hoping.”
Yet to O’Rourke’s benefit, there was no major media outlet on hand to cover the event in the moment — just as there were no reporters shouting questions at O’Rourke at the university or in Tucumcari, New Mexico, or at the Starbucks in Pueblo, Colo. The story has become whatever O’Rourke makes it — “Over-the-top, authentic, refreshing,” according to Slate. “Epic, rambling,” said Fox News.
The Denver Post, sniffing out O’Rourke’s turn into Colorado on Thursday, wrote simply, “Beto O’Rourke stopped by Pueblo on secret road trip across America.”
Even when the analysis has been critical — a sharp-edged CNN story Thursday asserted O’Rourke’s meandering trip “drips with white male privilege” — it is keeping O’Rourke in the news.
“Beto’s social media personality rivals cult-like status,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who worked on the presidential campaigns of Sanders and Barack Obama. Instead of embarking on a book tour or visiting early nominating states, he said, O’Rourke has “mastered the art of anticipation to mitigate political risks and elevate his persona.”
And for O’Rourke, who has little traditional campaign infrastructure and will rely on a network of small donors, maintaining such attention is critical. Bob Mulholland, a Democratic National Committee member from California, said, “American politics is a Broadway show: You either get a lot of people on the second night, or the show’s closing. O’Rourke knows the show will close if he’s not putting out some kind of speculation.”
O’Rourke is leaning toward running for president, according to at least four sources who have spoken to him or his advisers, and his former advisers have been quietly sketching the outline of a potential presidential campaign. The former Texas congressman will participate in Oprah Winfrey’s “Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations from Times Square,” a live event on Feb. 5.
But O’Rourke tells his friends and people he meets on the road that he has not made up his mind, and his Medium posts — his preferred method of communicating from the road — reflect an emotional vulnerability that is rare for a top-tier presidential contender. O’Rourke writes that he has been “in and out of a funk” lately and that on his road trip, he is hoping to “break out of the loops I’ve been stuck in.”
Larry Smith, owner of the Motel Safari in Tucumcari, said that when he asked O’Rourke why he chose to stay at his motel, O’Rourke said “he was attracted to the fact it was a mom and pop business.”
Then, noting the winter rate of $59.95, Smith added, “He said he’s on a budget because, how did he put it, he’s in between jobs.”
—snip—
For some politicians, the purpose of a road trip is “to kind of get out of the bubble, and just go out and meet real folks,” said Garry South, a longtime Democratic strategist who sent one of his candidates, Alex Seith, on a road trip across Illinois in his 1978 race for U.S. Senate.
The purpose, South said, was not to “impact voters in any kind of massive way,” but to help the candidate.
“What it did for the candidate was, it gave him great raw material to talk about on the stump. You know, `I met a woman the other day, on her doorstep, in such and such a town, and here’s what she said to me’ …. Politicians die for those kinds of stories.”
—snip—
For any candidate at this still-early stage, he said, “I think the biggest thing is what it means to any of them personally … There is nothing quite like going out and being a candidate for national office.”
“If it’s good for him, then that’s a good thing,” Maslin said. “That’s the biggest thing, is how they themselves get ready to do this, because there isn’t a lot of margin for error.”
In O’Rourke’s case, Mook said, “Unorthodox is a viable strategy.”
“I think he’s being really genuine,” he said. “Going into the proverbial wilderness to figure out what his purpose is.”
I personally think that the most important idea in this article is the following:
…O’Rourke, who has little traditional campaign infrastructure and will rely on a network of small donors…
This man…running on a similar set of tactics…raised almost 80 million dollars in his campaign against one of the most powerful (and well-PAC-funded) senators in the U.S. Congress, Ted Cruz. Without taking PAC monies!!!
This was just in Texas!!! A popular reaction of opened purse-strings for someone who:
A-Had almost no national standing whatsoever
and
2-Broke every damned rule in the professional campaign managers’ playbooks.
HMMMMmmmm…!!!
Imagine how much he could raise in a national election!!!
Imagine how dangerous he must appear to the corporate-owned controllers, those people whose job is basically to make sure that corporate lobbyists continue to control the DC swamp!!!
Sorry to discombobulate alla y’all OLD Club members, but there it is.
If he runs…and I have a gut feeling he is going to do so…he will overturn the old-line campaigning applecart (Dem version) just as surely as Trump overturned the RatPub cart.
And then where will of of your sniping have gotten you?
Even further out of the new loop.
Of course…the media and the entrenched (charter OLD Club) DNC people will fight with all they’ve got, so maybe he won’t be successful. Bernie Sanders wasn’t, but others have learned from his failure.
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes…
Watch.
It may take some more time, but…
Bet on it.
AG
