Beto O’Rourke didn’t win his campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz last month. But the presidential chatter surrounding him continues. It looks like some rival factions in the Democratic Party might have it out for Beto, too.
Yesterday, a Wall Street Journal story popped reporting that:
Democratic leaders in Iowa, the starting line for the party’s wide-open 2020 presidential contest, are hungry for a young standard-bearer who will usher in generational change…
[...]
Of the 76 Democratic county party leaders who responded to the survey, 43 said they would prefer a young candidate. They said they want a fresh face and expressed interest in potential candidates who haven’t run for president before. They yearn for a nominee with the energizing charisma of President Barack Obama to counter President Donald Trump’s rowdy base.
What came next might surprise you: Bernie Sanders staffer turned reporter David Sirota took to Twitter with this attention-grabbing note:
It’s had 2,900 favorites and 1,300 retweets so far, so it’s made an impact— one that is mostly probably negative for the young, charismatic Texan, and beneficial to the old, already-ran Sanders who coincidentally used to employ Sirota.
It’s also pretty disingenuous.
As Sirota surely knows, the donations in question come from individuals employed by oil and gas companies— Beto never took corporate PAC money, so it’s hard to fairly describe these donations as coming from oil and gas companies.
Moreover, Beto’s race was one of the most-watched, hottest, and high-priced in the country. And it was in Texas, which is home to a massive oil and gas industry. If Beto hadn’t been getting pretty large sums from people employed in the oil and gas industry, it would likely have indicated a lack of in-state appeal for the Democrat— which would have made him less likely to beat Cruz.
Of course, Sirota does know all this; it’s just that his interests likely dovetail a lot more with his old boss, Sanders, than the new, hot kid on the block, Beto, who also happens to be a lot more to Iowa Democratic leaders’ liking than Sanders who doesn’t fit the profile of what they’re looking for this year.
Too bad, too sad!