The campaign trail for many democratic candidates has already begun. Many of them have already begun the task of putting themselves in the national spotlight: interviews (both televised and in print), TV spots and ads, and other various public appearances. This Tuesday, March 19th, one of these candidates made their way onto our very own campus. As the title would tell you, that candidate was Beto O’Rourke. I had the opportunity to attend his “meet and greet,” and will have a look into him and my experiences today.
First of all, he says the right things. He knew his audience (aka liberal middle-aged adults and college students), and told us exactly what many there wanted to hear. From lest year when he took on Ted Cruz’s long-held position as Texas Senator, he drew the attention of many, with his pro-immigration and overall opposition to the Republican party. In Texas, a traditionally “red” state, he was able to garner 48% of the votes to Cruz’s 50%, narrowly losing what many had assumed would be a landslide victory for Cruz. This was largely due to his charisma and appeals to people’s emotions. To many, he is reminiscent of former president Obama, in terms of his oratory abilities and charisma. He also uses plenty of anecdotes to convey his messages, usually sharing very emotional and sometimes heartbreaking stories to prove his points. On the surface level, this is all well and good, but unfortunately, these very points (charisma and anecdotes) are also used against him. Many of his critics accuse him of using these as crutches for what can be a platitudinous stance on politics. From my own experience, I can say that while he does convey his stance and what he wants to be done, he can be a bit cloudy on how to actually get it done. And he does use too many personal stories that can’t be proven, and Americans simply won’t buy it unless he can provide more concrete evidence: He told a story of a young diabetic man with insufficient healthcare, as opposed to providing a study or reliable statistics, which won’t work when trying to convince conservative Americans that our healthcare system should take on the liberal model as opposed to more privatization.
Beto did provide a general platform, and it was more liberal than I had initially expected. His major focus was on immigration, which is the most relevant topic for his hometown of El Paso, but also one of the topics that he can easily grill president Trump about. He was opposed to the practice America has been guilty of, which is separating children from their parents at customs, as well as support of the “Dreamers” and a very pro-immigration stance. This will not be touted as highly by other candidates, buy Beto is not unique in this sentiment- you’d have to look hard for a Democrat who doesn’t have the same beliefs. And this is common with Beto. He calls for the legalization of Marijuana and decriminalization of specifically heroin (basically, the drug should still be illegal, but addicts need help, not jail time), also a popular belief among leftists. He also makes a big deal of equalizing Americans’ opportunity to succeed, with education policies to provide quality education for majority black and other minority schools, as the quality is simply less than majority white schools. Again, almost every candidate in the race would say the same thing. The same is true for his stance on climate change- that it exists, needs to be dealt with immediately, and the current administration is handling it poorly.
One policy Beto prides himself in is his ability to cooperate. In Texas, there were plenty of Republicans, and he tells of working with them to pass rather left legislation in feats of bipartisanship. That is all well and good in Texas, but nationally, many American leftists are not willing to compromise on critical issues with Republicans, so this could backfire against him later.
At the event today, Beto was asked a very insightful question about how he would handle America’s troubling relations with Saudi Arabia, a nation that is currently using American weapons to carry out a genocide against the people of Yemen. While he did agree that the situation was terrible and hinted that he would not let that slide, he seemed to largely avoid the question and continue talking about domestic issues. His final point was essentially that the U.S. shouldn’t worry about other nations until we can take care of our own issues. While many Americans (including myself) would agree with this statement and a non-interventionist foreign policy, Beto’s statements didn’t assure that the U.S. would intervene less under his presidency, more that his major focus is domestic policy. This may cause uneasiness by left voters towards his candidacy.
Overall, Beto was a great speaker, but lacked true substance in my eyes. If America also deems his campaign to be reliant on personality as opposed to actual policy, he may be in trouble. Unless he can step up a little more, I don’t see him winning in 2020.
I also attended Beto’s Meet and Greet, which was extremely interesting. I think that out of all candidates currently campaigning, Beto is putting forth the most effort to reach a variety of undecided voters that he may take away from trump in 2020. The major hurdle for Beto will be securing the 2020 Democratic Nomination as many Democrats see him as an Ex-Republican whose policy record contradicts his future liberal plans. The major issue that I took with his speech was when he addressed the Saudi Arabia issue, believing that we need to work on America’s many issues before we can look abroad and criticize the actions of Saudi Arabia. To me, this was an utterly ridiculous statement. he seemed to imply that America is far too flawed to tell other countries how to act, which I think is an awful perspective. America is an amazing place, and while the nation does have issues that need to be addressed, we are completely within our rights to condemn the awful things that Saudi Arabia does to journalists, women, and homosexuals. He seems to imply that America is built on a terrible structure that must be changed. The US does have its issues, but I think Beto needs to stop focusing on all the divisive, negative aspects of America and focus more on the founding principles of our country that bind Americans together.