Free Republic

What happens to a candidate with no reason to run? July 3, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 65 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Once upon a time, Robert Francis O’Rourke was golden. Vanity Fair posed him in front of a barren landscape, declaring, “Man, I’m just born to be in it.” He put his dental visit on Instagram and made a video diary driving in a van while trying to figure out what he wanted to do. He stood on a table....

Beto O’Rourke weighed in on his performance during the first Democratic presidential debate, giving himself an “A” grade.peaking on CNN Thursday morning, the former Texas congressman was asked to give himself a grade. He initially spoke in broad strokes about how he did, bringing up his unsuccessful run against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

Live by the media hype, die by the media hype...for someone else. Such is the sad fate of poor Beto O'Rourke who just a few short weeks ago basked in the glow of mainstream media adulation. Unfortunately for the Irish guy with the Mexican nickname, the media has switched its attention to another shiny object in the form of Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, now "burning with the velocity of a prairie fire on a gusty Indiana day." On Wednesday, Politico chronicled Beto's tragic loss of his magic mojo in "Why the Media Dumped Beto for Mayor Pete."...

Texas Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, one of the latest Democrats to enter the party’s 2020 presidential primary, confirmed he’s just as uncompromisingly pro-abortion as the rest of the field Monday when he expressed his support for legal elective abortions in the third trimester. O’Rourke was speaking at a campaign event in Cleveland, Ohio, the Daily Caller reports. An attendee asked him how far he takes his “pro-choice” stance, anticipating how he might respond. “Are you for third trimester abortions or are you going to protect the lives of third trimester babies?” she asked. “Because, you know, there’s really not a...

The official launch of former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign has been marked by a series of very bad new cycles, briefly interrupted by some quite positive ones. After disappearing for weeks on some sort of Simon and Garfunkle vision quest to explore his own feelings and find the Real America, O’Rourke decided that he was “born to run” for the presidency. And that’s when the oppo research started dropping. Some of it involved things we’d already learned during his Senate campaign, but those were mixed in with brand new and disturbing revelations.But that’s all behind him now....

Former Texas Democratic Rep. and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke allegedly pranked his wife, Amy, once by putting baby poop in a bowl and telling her that it was avocado.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke warned Thursday in his first presidential campaign stop that parts of the planet will soon become uninhabitable, driving a massive wave of climate 'refugees' across the U.S. border, if America's government doesn't adopt emergency measures within the next 12 years. O'Rourke, 46, had formally announced an hour earlier that he will seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, ending months of speculation over whether he would try to translate his newfound political celebrity into a White House bid. In the southwestern Iowa town of Keokuk, a sweater-clad Beto told a smallish crowd that by the time...

At a campaign event in Keokuk, Iowa on the morning he officially announced his run for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke strongly endorsed the Green New Deal, saying: "Not to be dramatic, but literally, the future of the world depends on us right now here where we are." "This is the final chance," O'Rourke said. "The scientists are unanimous on this. We have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis."

Beto O’Rourke, the youthful Texan who gained a national following with his long-shot election battle against U.S. Senator Ted Cruz last year, on Thursday launched a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.The 46-year-old O’Rourke, a former three-term U.S. congressman and a punk rocker in his youth, pledged to tackle “the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy and our climate.” “This moment of peril produces, perhaps, the greatest moment of promise for this country,” he said in an online video.

Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, whose ultimately unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2018 earned him a fervent and national following, announced Thursday morning that he is running for president in 2020. "This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us," O'Rourke said sitting alongside his wife, Amy, in his official announcement video released Thursday morning. "The challenges that we face right now; the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy and our climate have never been greater."

Beto O'Rourke all but announced his 2020 presidential candidacy in a wide-ranging interview published Wednesday in Vanity Fair magazine, confidently saying he was "just born to do this" -- a move that would contradict his multiple previous assurances that he would not seek the White House, and further crowd a Democratic primary field already chock-full of progressive candidates. The move seemed inevitable Wednesday night. KTSM reported it received a text message from O'Rourke earlier in the day saying he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination, writing: "I'm really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents. It's...

Beto O'Rourke is scoping out a presidential run. According to Buzzfeed, his recon included a call to Al Sharpton to schedule a meeting. A Sharpton spokeswoman confirmed to Buzzfeed that "they spoke and agreed to meet within the next couple of weeks and they had a great conversation." [Snip] O'Rourke has yet to officially confirm a presidential run, but all signs (including his Senate run) point to a definite White House bid. Having already met with former President Obama, O’Rouke’s upcoming meeting with Sharpton is a harbinger of the role of racial politics in the upcoming election. Sharpton and...

Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke is changing his tune about the possibility of running for president in 2020. Prior to his narrow loss in the Texas US Senate race to Republican Ted Cruz, O'Rourke had repeatedly insisted he would not run for president. Now, he's leaving the door open. He said Monday he will finish his term in the House in January and focus with his wife and children on "being together as a family" until then.

The 2018 midterms were hugely significant on their own terms but they also serve as prologue for the Big Show: 2020, a presidential election as critical as any in American history. That’s why it’s not too early to start mulling over it. Decent people around the world can hold out for another 24 months—especially with the check on President Trump now provided by a Democratic House. But six more years of exposure to Agent Orange should he win reelection would be a world-historical disaster.

Beto O’Rourke fell agonizingly short of becoming the first Democrat in a quarter of a century to win a statewide race in Texas but he may yet get a shot at an even bigger prize. O’Rourke, who was projected to lose to Republican incumbent Ted Cruz on Tuesday, had vowed that he would serve out his full six-year term in the Senate if victorious and would not run for president in 2020. But a defeat frees him of those obligations. And given how close he got to unseating a Republican in the ruby-ed Lone Star State, he is sure to...

Texas is now purple. A 3 point win for Cruz proves it. Beto is all the Rats have for 2020 and he's going to have to run for POTUS. He can lie his way into the WH just like Hussein did. If he lowers his sights and takes on Cornyn he'll win. Moral victories don't count unless you're a Democrat. Fla./Ga. governors races had no business being so close. I hope Trump enjoys slapping around house Democrats because he'll have to.

Celebrities disappointed at Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke's loss in Texas are already backing him for president. Minutes after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, defeated O'Rourke to take a second term on Tuesday, Hollywood stars took to social media to throw their weight behind the defeated candidate. 'Beto lost? That's ok,' actress Alyssa Milano tweeted. 'Now he can run for President.' Actress Busy Philipps was also hopeful O'Rourke could stop Donald Trump getting a second term.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) fended off Democrat challenger Robert Francis O’Rourke to win re-election in a high-profile Senate race Tuesday, but establishment media pundits, Hollywood celebrities, and liberal activists did not lose hope — they had now moved on to dreams of “Beto 2020.” Cruz finished a surprising second in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and began the Senate race as a prohibitive favorite. However, O’Rourke visited fiercely conservative parts of the state that his party had long since given up on, while shattering fundraising records despite shunning donations from outside political groups and pollster advice. Cruz argued that his...

Texas U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) is engaged in a tough general election challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), but for now, he's ruling out a run for president in 2020.

“This Beto O’Rourke seems interesting,” De Niro told Bloomberg News on Thursday, when asked who would be the best replacement for Trump.