It's been a rough couple of months since Beto announced his campaign, and was lauded as a formidable candidate to win the nomination. He's been overtaken in the polls by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose appeal is similar to O'Rourke's, but has the added benefit, in the identity-obsessed realm of Democratic politics, of being openly gay. As former Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) recently observed: Beto "may be regretting that he's straight."