When a leader truly stands at the forefront of an issue and takes ownership of that cause it is difficult for the opposition to spin the narrative in their favor. In fact, for lightweight, perpetual candidates like Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke it’s nigh on impossible and in his effort to try he may have inadvertently cut a campaign ad for Republicans.
(Video: Texas Tribune)
From Thursday to Saturday, The Texas Tribune hosted their 12th annual TribFest in Austin, TX where a bipartisan slate of lawmakers and industry leaders were invited to participate in discussions. This included O’Rourke who, after failing to beat incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in 2018 and dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary before a single vote was cast, is vying to defeat incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in the Texas gubernatorial election.
During his hour long conversation with The New Yorker’s Lawrence Wright, O’Rourke leveled that his party was to blame for Hispanic voters shifting toward Republican candidates and especially President Joe Biden who hadn’t spent “a dime or day…anywhere in Texas.”
“What did we have on our side? Nothing,” he asserted, after recounting then-President Donald Trump’s strong message on the economy in 2020.
Meanwhile, “Candidate Biden didn’t spend a dime or day in the Rio Grande Valley or really anywhere in Texas, for that matter, once we got down the homestretch of the general election.”
“You gotta be locking eyeballs with the people that you want to fight for and serve and whose votes that you want to win,” he railed, seemingly lamenting the growing hopelessness of a statewide Democratic campaign in the Lone Star State.
After claiming Trump’s efforts to ensure national sovereignty and national security by seeking to protect the border were “xenophobic,” O’Rourke offered roughly 30 seconds of positive messaging for the conservative movement as he contended, voting on the basis of progressive whims is “a luxury if I can’t guarantee that I’m gonna have a job, or afford this roof over my head or be able to feed my family. Republicans showed up with a very strong, compelling economic message. From Trump, it was literally one syllable, one word, it was ‘jobs.'”
From there he claimed that the former president’s stance came through a supposed “false choice” of “I can either keep you holed up in your house during this pandemic, or I can open up all places of employment and prioritize the economy.”
As has been previously reported, Hispanic support has been on the rise for conservatives as voters seek common sense solutions to the real problems they are faced with every day. In Florida for instance, Republicans have garnered an historic 250,000 voter registration advantage over Democrats for the first time and those gains included a 15 percent increase in Hispanic voters in the GOP just since August 2020.
“Hispanics really like leadership with a backbone,” Republican Party of Florida Executive Director Helen Aguirre Ferré said. “They really do recognize that it’s important to have a strong leader, and the governor has a way where he can use the same language and demeanor whether he’s speaking to Wall Street and to Main Street in the same way.”
Drawn to DeSantis’s ‘fearlessness’ and ‘leadership with a backbone,’ Florida Hispanics choosing GOP https://t.co/xbgEXVURV5
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) September 21, 2022
In Texas, this has translated to some other historic victories like the special election of Rep. Mayra Flores who flipped Texas’ 34th Congressional District to Republican as she became the first Mexican-born congresswoman in June.
“We’re going to be winning races that no one thought we’d win before,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) expressed to Fox News Digital Saturday. “And how are we going to do it? By leaning into our conservative values. This is just the start of the future of the Republican Party. I’m excited to be a part of it.”
As O’Rourke continues to trail in the polls to Abbott, he contended that he would not be making the same mistakes as his party, adding, “I am making sure that we do not commit the same sin as some Democrats before me have committed, which is to take voters of color, black voters and Latinos, for granted.”
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Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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