When Beto O’Rourke’s presidential bid came to a merciful end last week, it was a surprise to only O’Rourke and his fragile, delusional supporters. The Washington Post chronicled the heartbreak of the Beto faithful upon hearing the news:
When I came across them a few minutes later, Guillen and Dumey were finishing their Moscow Mules, and Franklin was downing an IPA. All three wore cheery blue O’Rourke campaign T-shirts touting the evening’s “Liberty and Justice Celebration” — and all of them were starting to cry. Thanks to the fact that CNN was on the screen behind the bar, they had just learned that O’Rourke had dropped out of the 2020 presidential race.
They are an emotional lot, the Betoites. There were tears everywhere on Friday, even from the Beto betas:
In the hotel lobby, I found Todd O’Day, who works for Microsoft in Seattle, and Scott Braymer, who develops apps in Santa Cruz, Calif.. They were still composed, but by the time we finished talking, they too were crying.
Given that his was a nonsensical, emotion-driven campaign from the beginning, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Beto’s fans are wildly missing the mark now that the finger-pointing has begun:
They’re being polite about it, but not shy: O’Rourke supporters are furious about media coverage of his candidacy. They think the mockery was over the top, lasted far too long and was punitive over him declining national TV interviews early on.
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) November 1, 2019
Here was one perfect response to that:
Yeah it was really brutal pic.twitter.com/0XIO58Ysyc
— . (@t4rdi5_) November 2, 2019
Rarely has an almost substance-free candidate experienced so much media hype upon entering a presidential contest. The MSM didn’t even gush that much when Barack Obama threw his hat into the ring for 2008 because they were all still too busy pretending that Hillary Clinton was going to be the nominee.
Mainstream and social media breathlessly covered every move of Beto’s for the first couple of weeks. His biggest fundraising haul came during this glowing coverage phase — he brought in almost $10 million in less than three weeks. His next two quarters combined brought in almost a million and a half less than that.
The media eventually did sour on Beto because Mayor Pete came along and provided a more intelligent and engaging version of O’Rourke, complete with the extra diversity cred that the Democrats drool over.
While the MSM coverage may have waned, it certainly never became negative.
The WaPo article did bring up one complaint that had more legitimacy:
“Beto and Beto supporters have gotten nothing but contempt from the Democrats,” Franklin said. “He spoke for me. He heard me.”
The powers-that-be in the Democratic party were never keen on Beto running at all. The field was already big enough, and — SURPRISE! — they thought Beto was just a little too full of Beto.
What Beto and his starry-eyed supporters never grasped was that he was a pure media creation. He became a sensation in 2018 solely because he was a Democrat in Texas and running against Ted Cruz, who Dems and the MSM used to portray as the antichrist before President Trump came to power.
It was always more about what he was than who he was. He’s only as charismatic, accomplished, or talented as the media says he is. When he was the sole focus in the 2018 Senate race, he had an abundance of all three according to the press.
When he was just another Dem, not so much.
I have a few liberal friends who were excited about Beto’s presidential prospects immediately after his loss to Cruz. I assured each one that he wouldn’t even be nominated.
The press didn’t become unfair, hostile, or “punitive” to Beto O’Rourke — they became indifferent. He’s an ideological and policy nothingburger who’s only talent is grandstanding. As the MSM became more indifferent, his grandstanding became less and less effective.
In the end, there was nothing.
OK, a few tears.
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