The Beto O’Rourke presidential campaign has sputtered and it has nothing to do with the other Democratic contenders. It has to do with the unpleasant fact for many in El Paso that Beto has no business running for president. The idea that El Paso can have a president likely makes many El Pasoans salivate with excitement at what could be.
You are not the only one, William Sanders is also happily dreaming about a son-in-law in the oval office. Remember that it was William Sanders that told some El Paso bigwigs that Beto would be president some day a few years ago.
But there is a difference between being groomed for years – many times since childhood – for political office against someone that was “just born for it.”
The presidential substance in Beto is just not there.
Being president requires not only political savvy but having a fundamental understanding of multidimensional and complex national and international issues, to include geopolitics, health, economy, trade, military and legal issues among others.
Listening to crowds shout national policy solutions may sound like the utopia solution to America’s broken political system, but you don’t replace a broken system with an unworkable one.
Beto needs a cohesive and deep understanding of national and international policies to be electable. He just doesn’t have it. Being on city council on the doorstep of México does not provide Beto with an understanding of the many issues a president would deal with. Just like Sarah Palin did not have the wherewithal for international relations because she could “see Russia,” neither does Beto’s partying in Juárez provide him the knowledge to be president.
Beto’s stint at the House was just that, a placeholder for his next step – the Senate. At Congress, Beto’s only contributions were congressional plaques for his other benefactor, Woody Hunt, who needs federal dollars to keep his empire running.
William Sanders and other Beto cohorts may be salivating at what could be, a Beto president, but the reality is that the substance just isn’t there, no matter how much you try to package Beto into the next great thing since JFK.
Beto sputtering at the gate is just proof that Beto is grandstanding a presidential run for ego – his and his father-in-law’s.
