Star Telegram By Bud Kennedy 10/20/2018
FORT WORTH
Beto Burnout might be setting in. But not on stage.
A wide-awake Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke rallied a three-fourths-full Ridglea Theater crowd early Saturday morning, emphasizing four words: “We vote on Monday.â€
On the eve of early voting in his 21-month, $61 million campaign for U.S. Senate, O’Rourke barely even alluded to incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz but campaigned hard against his familar targets: Texas voters’ cynicism and disillusionment.
As national publications began speculating on a Beto 2020 presidential campaign — one headline reads “Beto O’Rourke Isn’t Running for Senate Anymore†— O’Rourke hewed to his now-familiar hope-and-change themes of inspiration and involvement to motivate a smaller-than-usual rally crowd..
“We are the government,†he told the turnout of about 1,000 mostly Anglo Democrats, a demographic which represents only about 10-15 percent of Texas voters.
“We have the power to stop the things we don’t like.â€
His list “the wall, the separation [of refugee parents and children], the Muslim ban, the press as enemy of the people.â€
That isn’t every Texan’s list.
But with a caravan of Honduran migrants pushing across the Mexico-Guatemala border and President Trump coming to Houston to lead a Cruz rally focusing on borders and immigration, O’Rourke doubled down on his defense of refugees and asylum seekers.
The Honduran migrant caravan is “a reminder that there is leadership elsewhere that is lacking,†said O’Rourke, an El Paso Democrat:
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