Former rocker rallies local backers in bid for Senate seat
Although Beto O’Rourke only gets as close to the West Coast as El Paso, Bowie County Democratic Party voters treated the U.S. congressman to beach ball-tossing and Beach Boys tunes Saturday.
The 44-year-old former punk rock musician-turned-Democratic politician dropped by Texarkana, Texas, to stir up voter enthusiasm; he seeks to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in next year’s senatorial race.
“You know this campaign is a real campaign, and we are going to keep it real,” O’Rourke said as he spoke to about 200 to 500 local supporters. “We are going to take hold of our future and take our country back. For the last 20 years, Texas has been rated as one of the safest states in the union, so we don’t need to put up a 30-foot-high wall on the border between us and Mexico. We have so many immigrant families here that are pillars of that safety and strength. They came here not to take from, but to contribute to the American Dream.”
Citing a poll which shows him dead even with Cruz—30 percent to 30 percent—O’Rourke said that if his supporters start today, they can take back the future for all Texans by winning Texas.
“We are the ones who will determine the future for our state, and we are going to get started right now here in Texarkana,” he said. “I need your shoe leather to walk in neighborhoods and your knuckles to knock on doors. Invest in this campaign, because I don’t take corporate cash—my support comes from people like you. I believe in a woman’s’ right to choose, and I believe we can keep the (Affordable Care Act) of 2010, because I believe in health care for all, and we can drive the cost of it down.”
O’Rourke also advocated improved health care for military veterans.
“If we are going to go to war, we need to be prepared to pay for it,” he said. “We are going to do this the right way, and on election night in 2018, we are going to win.”