Beto O’Rourke 2020 campaign megathread

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Beto is easily my second choice after Bennet. If Bennet's run doesn't work out, I won't hesitate for a second to throw my support behind him.

I’m basically the opposite. Bennet really impressed me with his diatribe against Cruz a few weeks back though. He hadn’t really been on my radar before.

Remember that this forum really underestimated Beto in 2018 and I wouldn’t be surprised if y’all’re doing it again this year.

Yes, because a former three term Congressman who lost a Senate race to one of the most unpopular politicians in the country screams President.

Yes, because one of the least effective senators from one of the whitest, smallest states who lost a primary to one of the most unpopular politicians in the country does scream president?

Beto had brogressive credentials until he was a threat to St. Bernard. I’ll never forget Shadows proclamation that Beto was the most progressive politician in the country. Now he’s a right wing neoliberal cuck.

My King is awakening from his hibernation at last.

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This primary is going to be a frigging clusterf***. I cannot wait for it to be over...

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I can already see the Trump nickname: Barrio Beto.

He just calls him Robert

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So, so far, our Beto supporters in this thread:

Blue avatars
Yellow avatars
Biden lovers
RFKFan

Sounds about right.

Add Bennetbros to the list. If Bennet doesn't run or flames out before the GA primary, Beto's my guy.

Add me too

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I think I am moving from Biden to Beto. That answer about his comments on his wife Amy was sincere and substantive. Hope to see more of that.

Most voters seem to like Beto a lot when they meet him in person- So he basically needs to meet a bit over 50K Iowa Voters & 50K NH voters between now and the caucus/primary, which he should definitely be able to do considering his campaign for Senate schedule. (I think 50K in each state is about 30% of the Dem vote- a percentage that would likely ensure a win).

This more or less. Won't be surprised if he's the first to make it to all 99 counties here. From a caucus perspective this helps him ensure viability in as many precincts as possible. He seems to be willing to show up just about anywhere so far.

I think Delaney already did, but no one cares about him. I’m hopeful that Beto will get to all 99 as well. Iowa is a very retail politics state, so looking at Beto’s run in 2018 gives me hope that he’ll do that again for Iowa, and NH if he has the chance.

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i know it put him in an awkward situation, but I wish Beto did not back down.

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I can see him hitting up all of Iowa's 99 counties before summer is over.

Took me a while to find the info, but in Beto's 3 day run through Iowa over the weekend he held 18 events in 13 counties. He's off to a good start.

If he gets the nomination, high stamina Beto will be too much for Trump.

I’d bet that he will hit all 99. He hit Texas’s 254 in his senate run.

I could care less how much he raised. He's a sell out plain and simple. He most likely never supported single payer and only did it to attract an audience. I would vote Harris over him at this point, I'm not kidding!!!!! She's not perfect either but at least she's mostly running as an actual progressive.

Oh, now money raised doesn't matter? Got it.

That's not the point..... I do like that he doesn't take money from donors and is able to fundraise well without having to do that. But other then that, Beto sucks. Here's a guy who literally ran to the left when he was running for the senate in a RED STATE and now all of a sudden he's disavowed that, and you expect me to believe him? And second of all, I'm supporting Gillibrand this time, not Bernie(he really is too old), so your whole strawman is nonsense.

Beto might be the most repulsive person running, though it's hard to beat Booker at that game.

Next on the list of people who are going to kill the democratic party with their delusional whining.

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Baristas to Beto O’Rourke: Come On Man, Get Off Our Counters

Submitted without additional comments.

Edit: Nvm, can’t resist:

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There are already O'Rourke signs around campus, which is, frankly, amazing given how far we are from even the first primaries.

Same with mine.

Its happening.

Several of my friends who were big Sanders supporters back in 2016 appear to have been converted into being Beto supporters. Make of that what you will. Frankly, I was surprised by it.

You can count me among those. Politically speaking, I think I fall between Sanders and Clinton, but I voted and supported Sanders in the primaries. I think Beto has the energy and enthusiasm behind him to beat Trump.

I do think that Medicare For All would cause some problems. I really don’t want to defend insurance companies, but they employ a lot of people and I think it would be a harder sell. I like the opt-in options thrown around though.

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The name similarity just registered with me... Was Beto named after Bobby Kennedy?
...Robert Francis

Wiki links to this article, which talks about his maternal grandfather’s name being Robert V. Williams. Not sure about the Francis part.

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We got the fundraising numbers:

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1108365181439148037

Id say this is a really great start for Beto, not only because of the fact that he outraised Sanders, but he did so with less people. This means that if Beto's campaign, if he emerges as a frontrunner, could scale rather well, and he may become a fundraising machine.

On the otherhand, this kinda plays into the idea that Beto's numbers were just larger and less plentiful, which may signify a weakness in how large his base is(of course, this is day 1, so I doubt this will stick).

Pretty good day to be a Beto supporter, Id say, and a pretty bad day to be a Sanders/Harris supporter. Now we just need Biden for the full picture.

While those are strong numbers to be sure, I think the fact that Sanders beat him in terms of the number of individual donors by almost 100K is still something to consider. Money does matter, but currently (this could change), it seems like there are more actual voters behind Sanders.

I think that’s a very valid point. It’s cool that Beto’s numbers are under $50 per person, but there’s still more Sanders folks as of now. It does put to rest the idea that all of Beto’s money came from oil tycoons dropping $2,700 per tycoon on his campaign.

Releasing things piecemeal can be a very good way to keep your name in the news. I feel like that might be what the O’Rourke campaign is trying to do.

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We got the fundraising numbers:

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1108365181439148037

Id say this is a really great start for Beto, not only because of the fact that he outraised Sanders, but he did so with less people. This means that if Beto's campaign, if he emerges as a frontrunner, could scale rather well, and he may become a fundraising machine.

On the otherhand, this kinda plays into the idea that Beto's numbers were just larger and less plentiful, which may signify a weakness in how large his base is(of course, this is day 1, so I doubt this will stick).

Pretty good day to be a Beto supporter, Id say, and a pretty bad day to be a Sanders/Harris supporter. Now we just need Biden for the full picture.

While those are strong numbers to be sure, I think the fact that Sanders beat him in terms of the number of individual donors by almost 100K is still something to consider. Money does matter, but currently (this could change), it seems like there are more actual voters behind Sanders.

I think that’s a very valid point. It’s cool that Beto’s numbers are under $50 per person, but there’s still more Sanders folks as of now. It does put to rest the idea that all of Beto’s money came from oil tycoons dropping $2,700 per tycoon on his campaign.

Releasing things piecemeal can be a very good way to keep your name in the news. I feel like that might be what the O’Rourke campaign is trying to do.

The problem I forsee is that releasing things piecemeal gives more time for other candidates to put together attacks on you. It gives off the impression that you're not that confident. For someone like Sanders, this is some great news.

That is fair and the Sanders campaign seems to have played that to their advantage.

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It was a predominately white crowd at a predominately white university. Try harder.

Here he is like an hour later at an HBCU... lol

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1109197161311412225

So he tweeted a 4 photos of himself with African American students? If you want to refute the idea that Beto has significant minority support, the answer isnt to take a photo posted by the candidate in question.

You’re reaching deeper than this conversation was. Bernie was made fun of for having predominately white audiences in traditional black spaces such as a black church in a majority black town in South Carolina. Beto having a predominately white crowd at a predominately white university is not comparable. Beto did however have a black audience in a black space UNLIKE Bernie. It is what it is.

The CNN poll that just came out has Bernie's favorable with non white Democrats as 77-9 compared to Beto's 35-14. Beto really has a problem there.

I for one am not shocked that Bernie is more well known. Give it 4-6 months and then we can compare numbers to see where they stand. Not saying Beto will be more popular, but he still needs to get his name out there.

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Either way, a very strong number for someone with relatively low name ID. He's gonna have more than enough money to compete heavily.

Can he use any left over money from his senate campaign?

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It was a predominately white crowd at a predominately white university. Try harder.

Here he is like an hour later at an HBCU... lol

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1109197161311412225

So he tweeted a 4 photos of himself with African American students? If you want to refute the idea that Beto has significant minority support, the answer isnt to take a photo posted by the candidate in question.

You’re reaching deeper than this conversation was. Bernie was made fun of for having predominately white audiences in traditional black spaces such as a black church in a majority black town in South Carolina. Beto having a predominately white crowd at a predominately white university is not comparable. Beto did however have a black audience in a black space UNLIKE Bernie. It is what it is.

The CNN poll that just came out has Bernie's favorable with non white Democrats as 77-9 compared to Beto's 35-14. Beto really has a problem there.

I for one am not shocked that Bernie is more well known. Give it 4-6 months and then we can compare numbers to see where they stand. Not saying Beto will be more popular, but he still needs to get his name out there.

He's talking about favourability ratings, not name recognition.

I got that part. I checked the cross tabs and 41% of non-white Dems did not know who Beto was compared to 9% for Sanders (side note, what Dems don’t know about Bernie?). There’s still an aspect of name recognition, I think. Again, not to say that Beto will be more liked (possibly not, given that he’s at 15% disapproval compared to Sanders’ 9% disapproval), but I think it would be a better comparison to see what Beto’s disapproval figures are once he’s known by about 90% of non-white Dems (or on has name rec on par with Sanders in a given poll).

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Hmm, its odd. We are on week 2 of Beto's announcement(week 3 by Thursday), and Beto still hasnt had a polling bounce. Im starting to think his strategy of announcing later than most of the competition may have diminished his possible gains.

I would wait to see how his 3 rallies in one day go. Then, the customary few days to a week for it to trickle into the polls. But yeah, he hasn’t really gooten a big jump.

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It would be fitting for the woke intersectionality crowd to settle on a WASP candidate who projects what they've judged as the right kind of white guilt over more accomplished competitors whose victories would actually matter in terms of representation.

You have a gay mayor, a Jewish Senator, several female Senators, two black Senators, an Asian entrepreneur, a Hispanic Cabinet Secretary, and others. Even Joe Biden of all people at least has a claim to working class roots.

Beto O’Rourke: Notorious Protestant

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https://twitter.com/DavidLauter/status/1120440021935427602

Very interesting. A lot of candidates are heading to California very early. Not surprising. I was under the impression that Kamala would win in a blowout.

She’s down as far as third in polls there. I wouldn’t call it safe for her.

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https://twitter.com/First_Dog_USA/status/1123303505941364736

Peaceful Beto supporters please refudiate.

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Yeah, I can’t defend that other than by saying that he probably won’t be the last.

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Such a nice conversation about the Beto campaign.

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Hate to be that guy and bring politics into a terrible tragedy such as this, but this disturbing act of racist terrorism seems to have jolted Beto back into his 2018-form. If he can sustain that passion and energy, he might be able to stage a comeback. Might

https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1158375056126480384?s=21

This is what I’m talking about. This is the fire he’s been missing all year

This is the Beto that has been missing. I’m cautiously putting him back in the number one slot. He needs to keep this up, not the wishy washy stuff he’s been putting out for the last few months, but this and what he was dishing out in 2018. Speaking truth to power and not apologizing for it.

“True to form” and his defense of Kaepernick come to mind.