Beto O'Rourke Drops Out Of 2020 Election

Beto O'Rourke is out. It's done, he's dropping out as of today. This happened just like 10 or 15 minutes ago, he put out a statement saying, our campaign has always been about speaking clearly, speaking honestly, jumping on top of things, and acting decisively. In that spirit, I am announcing that my service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee. For those of you listening to the show rather than watching it- He didn't actually say that. He didn't actually say jumping on top of things. Everything else was verbatim. Decisively, he means, I see something high, I get onto something high. That's what he means. But anyway, he's been in this for a long time. And initially, he entered the race with a certain amount of viral interest from people coming from his Senate race. He raised like $6 million in the first 48 hours. And then I read a stat was that that $6 million in the first 48 hours was more than he would go on to raise in the next 1,000 days. Wow. Which I don't understand how that's possible numbers wise, but that's what was in the Washington Post. Maybe they mean hours. I don't know. No, it's definitely possible. Yeah. So here's my take on Beto. And it's a really complicated one. And you feel, really? Yeah, yeah. So let me explain why. Because a lot of other candidates are in clearly defined buckets, right? Biden, Klobuchar are more conservative Democrats. They say you don't really need any change, we're just gonna fiddle around the edges. And we are not Donald Trump, da, da, da, da. Okay, and then there are the progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren. Those are very clear ends of the spectrum, right? And now this end of the spectrum is weighted down with almost all the other candidates, John Delaney, some of the former candidates like John Hickenlooper, etc. And then there was a small sliver in the middle that could have gone either way in the beginning of the campaign, right? They could have gone in the progressive route, they could have gone in the more conservative route. And so that was Beto, Buttigieg, and I would argue Kamala Harris, Gillibrand, and Booker, okay? So now, it's small when you compare the 27 people that were in this race at different times. But it's an important five, they're establishment figures that were leaning progressive, doing things like rejecting corporate PAC money, etc. So Beto, I have in the camp of well-intentioned within that bucket, okay? I also have Booker in that well-intentioned bucket. But ultimately made a terrible decision that probably none of the rest of the media will talk about now, that was absolutely decisive. So at the beginning of his campaign, he had his team that had done spectacularly well in the Texas Senate race. But particularly his field team, the people who organized the volunteers and the staffers to go out on knock on doors, make the phone calls. They broke every record there was in reaching out through grassroots in Texas. That's why he almost beat Ted Cruz in a spectacularly run race. So he had it, and that's why he raised the 6 million, right? In the beginning, people were like, my God. And in the beginning, he had started running as a real firebrand, progressive, no corporate PAC money. And I'm gonna come back to that cuz he should get a lot of credit for that, Medicare for all, etc. Then near the end of the race, he was like, not really Medicare for all. And I was like, no. John covered- I feel like we had those concerns much earlier, though, even back during the Senate race. I'm saying in the Senate race, I'm sorry, thank you for clarifying, yes. So I was just about to say, John watched the first debate that he had with Ted Cruz, came back and was like, I don't think he's for Medicare for all, right? Then Anna and I covered the second debate, and we did this all on tyt.com. We might have done it for the members, tyt.com slash join, so you don't miss any of our content. So we came back scratching our heads like he seems like he's leaning away from progressives now. And I think that that was a critical mistake. I think if he hadn't done that, he might have actually won in Texas. But most importantly, he runs that amazing race. He turns around and he's gonna run for president. And everybody says, Beto, you got this, you're the next Bobby Kennedy, you're gonna win. This is so exciting. So we brought in the Obama people. Now I would have said, and why would I want them? I have the most amazing team that's ever been assembled. So and he's like, Obama staffers. So he hired them and decided that they were not gonna do the grassroots campaign that he had done in Texas, disaster. So the grassroots team that was legendary left, Zach Malitz, Becky Bond, and all the people that work with them. These are diehard progressives and the best in the business in organizing, okay? So they immediately left because Beto decided to go in the opposite direction. Let me ask those people who believe in those Obama staffers now, how'd that work out for you? Yeah, I think it was a completely different environment for Obama when the candidate was a different charismatic type of figure. That Beto O'Rourke, for all his impassioned rhetoric, was not an Obama. And the staffers were young and they very much utilized a digital space that hadn't previously before been leveraged for a campaign. So there were unique crevices that this Obama world had explored. And again, we've seen the connection with people who worked on the team that went to Cambridge Analytica and then just really shifted their whole setup. But that formula doesn't necessarily work now in this moment. That's one thing. And two, it's interesting to me when candidates can't win smaller races. Of course, Texas is a notoriously difficult race to win as a Democrat to become a senator. But the fact that he got really close, I didn't understand why people saw him as a frontline candidate for the Democratic ticket when you did have some of these other folks that were energizing a population around more of a unique message and solutions, right? He didn't really have any solutions for us besides the fact that he doubled down on a gun buyback program. And besides the fact that he had an El Paso moment, which was beautiful to see the ways that he finally fought back to Trump in ways other Democrats would not. But there wasn't something spectacularly special about Beto that distinguished him from the rest of, as you said, that sort of middle pack of folks that didn't really know where they stood depending on what their strategist told them for the day. Yeah, and so there was a lane that he could have used to win. If he came out and said, I'm the young progressive, I love what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are doing. I'm gonna improve upon those plans and we're gonna get them passed, etc. People could have been excited by that. Both those candidates are in their 70s and he could have, then he sticks with his organizing team and then he would have the best organizing team, maybe even better than Bernie Sanders team. And he would have raised a lot more money cuz people would have continued to be excited. Instead, he listened to the idiots in the mainstream media. And so those Obama staffers, yeah, the idea that Obama was more charismatic. I always think charisma is overrated in politics. And you think, what, what do you mean? That's what everybody talks about. But Mitch McConnell has no charisma whatsoever. Chuck Schumer is in the negatives on charisma. And those are the two leaders in the Senate. They can never run for president. Yeah, that's true. Well, I know, but how do you win in Kentucky? How do you win in New York? I mean, so most of the politicians are the driest people you'll ever meet and have no charisma at all. So anyway, look, I don't wanna get- I'm more on Mathis' side on this. Okay, no problem. I mean, you have to have it, but I think it's definitely a nice plus if you do. It's a key ingredient, yeah. I mean, I still remember the first speech I ever saw Obama gave was in 2004, the DNC speech. And I thought, my God, this guy is something. That counts for something. I'm not saying that that necessarily gets you all the way, but it certainly counts for something. And the concession speech that Beto gave was what put him on the map, really. I mean, people were watching that race, but for a national audience, that was his moment to elevate was folks saying, this guy didn't win in the Senate, but I want him somewhere on my team. So look, I don't wanna get stuck on that cuz that's a tiny part of this story, okay? But the bottom line is he made the wrong choices. He decided to go more conservative. He decided to not do grassroots. And so all the people that are focusing on all the wrong reasons, they keep missing the critical element. In this primary, unlike, let me put it this way. It's the race that I have seen it most clear in my lifetime. The voters care about policy. They deeply, deeply care about it. Every time Warren proposes new policies, she rises. Bernie proposes new policies on the left, he rises. Beto decided, like a lot of other candidates, no, I'm gonna propose standard, milquetoast, moderate to conservative policies. And people are like, no, no, no, no, you misunderstood us. We're not at all interested in that. We're gonna stop giving you money. We're not gonna volunteer for you, and you're done, and that's what happened here. Yeah, and especially early on, as you pointed out, he didn't have a really strong identity. He was sort of known more than you might expect a random Senate candidate who didn't win to be known. But he entered seemingly just because he had this kind of viral thing, and he was nationally known because of his Senate race. And so he decided to come in, and the first national introduction that a lot of people had was this Vanity Fair cover about how I was born for this. And it's like, if we're struggling to understand why you think at this point, you don't have a lifetime of accomplishments and everything, why you should be president, and you seem so sure of yourself, that's a weird combination. He didn't have a core issue. I can name a few things that he spoke with passion about. But so for instance, recently he's been talking a lot about guns, but I don't remember six months ago him talking about guns a ton. It seems like he talked about it, and it did well, and so he doubled down on it. Occasionally, that would be immigration. At one point, it was Colin Kaepernick, but it wasn't like, I'm seeing the true you come through. It's like, you're sort of, I'm not saying he's like Trump, but Trump does this. Trump talks about everything. He sees what gets applause, and then he talks about it more. Yeah, so then you might be wondering, why do I have him in the good intent bucket, right? So look, John's right, there's a number of things he did right. He was pretty good on the environment. He was very good in challenging Donald Trump's bigotry. You say everybody is, but he actually particularly was adamant and did one of the better jobs of doing that. But that's not why. The main reasons why were him doubling down on guns. Yes, John could be right that he saw a moment there, especially with what happened in El Paso. But he was at least had the courage to do what every Democrat told him not to do. Yeah. Right? They're like, no, you're gonna cost us elections, and how dare you? And he's like, that's like your opinion, man. But this stuff's getting people killed. It's getting my constituents killed. It's getting all these. And so I'm gonna do it. Yes, we're gonna do the buyback program. That was one of the best moments for any candidate in this entire campaign. Okay, so you have to give him credit for that. But even more important than that, he took no corporate PAC money well before anyone else did, even before the Justice Democrats. Now I know that there was issues, that he took some fossil fuel executive money during the Senate race. And so there was some loophole issues, etc there. But guys, he led on that when no one else was. So that is both huge, substantively, and shows you he has promise. He can actually, he's a young guy. He can be brought back to the light side, right? The force of good. We'll have to see what he does now. Yeah, absolutely. And he's not running for Senate, he says, at least. He's also not endorsing anyone right now. So we'll have to see. Yeah, he has some good instincts. He appears to be a good guy, and he's had some really good policies. But he got wooed and seduced by like, my God, I think I'm gonna win, Obama staffers. Yeah, who cares about grassroots? So I hope that he has learned from that terrible, in this political case, fatal mistake. And that he could go back to being a progressive. And so in a sense, maybe I'm wrong, but I actually kind of believe in him. And so I think he could make for an interesting person in an administration that's actually progressive. And if given the right leadership and guidance, I think he comes back and plays a really important role. Unlike others, here, I'll say it, like Buttigieg, who seems to be clearly scheming. I've never gotten a sense from Buttigieg of, I am authentic, and I've got some good instincts and some bad instincts, and I struggle with that. It's no like, calculating, calculating, calculating, how do I play the politics of this to get ahead? I've gotta get ahead, gotta get ahead. Warren took the progressive thing that I was planning to do, but, well, I guess that's too late. So I'll now do the conservative thing, and calculate, calculate, calculate. So maybe I'm wrong, maybe you see it differently. But to me, there's a world of difference between Beto and Buttigieg. And so anyway, of course he wasn't going to win. This is the right decision at this point in time. But in a sense, I was glad that he was in the race. Yeah, yeah, and I respect that he can look and see that he's definitely not gonna become president and drop out. Cuz there's a lot of people right now that are running, even though they know they're not gonna be president. Thank you.