Monday, May 6, 2019

Oh, Beto, we hardly knew ye

"Beto’s campaign, sparse and directionless as it is, has been an experiment in what happens when an overgrown child runs for president. What he stands for, what he’s fighting for, what the entire point is of an unemployed flash-in-the-pan former congressman vying for the White House, are questions that remain up in the air."

Taylor Lewis  "The once wunderkind from El Paso has lost his shine of late, and is now being eclipsed polling-wise by a Midwestern mayor whose sexual predilection scratches off one of the Democrats’ diversity boxes. Perhaps O’Rourke’s gringoish nickname is no longer fooling liberal voters; after all, his baptismal name of “Robert Francis” is the kind of icky Anglo-Irish stuff that is de trop in the diversity party.
"Or, in a crowd of divas and inflated egos with legs, maybe Beto O’Rourke’s assumed qualities no longer stand out. Anyone can give a speech while practicing a manic form of port de bras. Even at a spry 77 years of age, Bernie Sanders has mastered the art of stern finger-pointing and raising his arms barely above his torso.
"Maybe Beto supporters once held out hope the rapid flapping of his arms would somehow help him take flight, like a bird after rooting for scraps at the hustings.
"It might even be the case that Beto’s schtick, callow and self-possessed as it was, has just worn thin. Existential crisis in the form of a road trip? Please. The Beat era has long passed. So, why’s the former Texas congressman acting like Ike Eisenhower is still in the White House?
"Beto’s one-man kitchen-sink drama has lost purchase among the Democrat faithful, particularly women. How do I know? The barometer for insipid progressive opinion: “The View.”
"The prating ladies of the daytime cable gabfest have lost interest in the Democrats’ former Sirius in a powder-blue button-up. What they object to isn’t Beto’s desperate attempt to compensate for his dearth of substantive policies by releasing pie-in-the-sky proposals for ridding America of Sunoco stations by 2050. What they take umbrage with is Beto’s knack for leaving his wife and kids and driving aimlessly around the country, visiting rustic locals and munching on flapjacks at way station diners.


“No woman could ever lose running for Senate, then go on a Jack Kerouac road trip, abandoning his wife and kids, finding himself,” Meghan McCain vented. Whoopi Goldberg, nobody’s idea of a culturally conservative mother, concurred: “If you have children as a woman… you can go… [but] nobody will understand.”

Goldberg then imitated Beto with all the theatricality of an Elizabethan actress. “Men are always…’ Oh, I’ve got to find myself.’” Lord, what fools these mortals be, indeed." . . .
"American society"; "the wisdom of the American voter", all made manifest in cheers of youthful girls as the candidate skateboards onto his campaign stage."


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