El Paso lawmaker may face Cruz
Democrat O’Rourke mulls entering 2018 Senate race
WASHINGTON – Eyeing a takedown of Ted Cruz, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke may be on the verge of declaring his candidacy for a 2018 Senate race, the next best gauge whether Texas Democrats are enjoying the resurgence they claim.
O’Rourke, D-El Paso, made national news last week along with U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, when they drove together to Washington in a rental car after an East Coast storm canceled many flights.
Their “bipartisan congressional town hall,” intended to show how members of different political parties can get along, drew thousands of followers via live streaming as the two talked about substantive matters, joked with one another and even joined in song along the way.
The congressmen announced Wednesday that the San Antonio to D.C. trip will become an annual event — to be called the Congressional Cannonball Run — and that other bipartisan teams from Con-
gress will be invited to join.
Along with O’Rourke, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, is considering the 2018 Senate race and next month intends to make known his decision.
Former punk rocker
O’Rourke, 44, is a threeterm congressman who devotes himself heavily to veterans’ issues. He is a fierce opponent of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and a fluent Spanish speaker who fights deportations and trumpets his border city as one of America’s safest.
He comes from a prominent political family but often seems the un-politician. He has played in three punk rock bands and counts great authors as influences in his life. He says both he and his wife, Amy, recently plowed through Tolstoy’s 1,440-page “War and Peace,” likely the only member of Congress who can make that claim.
But as 2018 candidacies take shape, O’Rourke is on a short list of top Texas Democrats considering a leap into the Senate race. He says he will reveal his plans shortly.
“I’m very moved to do it,” he said in an interview. “After the election my wife (Amy) was with me in seeing a political direction that this country is taking that in no way reflects the real opportunities that I see in my community and in Texas.
“I will tell you I reached an emotional decision (election) night that we’ve got to do something differently, and since then I have been trying to back that up, listening to folks all over the state.”
Texas political strategist Matt Angle points to signs of a Democratic renewal in Texas propelled in part by Latino mobilization and evidenced by Trump’s singledigit victory last year, the best a Democrat has fared in a presidential election in 20 years.
Even so, Angle, who heads the Democraticaligned Lone Star Project, added: “Under every equation, Texas is a hard and heavy lift for a Democrat. But the dynamic is changing.”
He said of O’Rourke: “If enthusiasm and the ability to connect with people are entry-level qualities needed for this race, Beto O’Rourke has them.”
Liberal credentials
O’Rourke may have less to lose than Castro, 42, who has climbed the ranks in the House to an Intelligence Committee post while cochairing caucuses dealing with Pre-K education and Japan.
O’Rourke never planned to stick around the House, perhaps a clue to what he’ll do next. A co-leader of the Term Limits Caucus, he is among the few Democrats to embrace term limits. If he stays true, he’d have just one two-year term ahead of him.
For any Democrat, running statewide in Texas in a mid-term election can be daunting given the plunge in turnout after a presidential year. Cruz’s national fundraising base could pose another obstacle. Entering 2017, his $4 million treasury was ten times O’Rourke’s, auguring what might lay ahead for any challenger.
O’Rourke’s liberal credentials could be a general election hindrance even as it energizes youthful supporters.
O’Rourke secured his far West Texas seat in the 2012 Democratic primary by unseating Silvestre Reyes, an eight-term incumbent and former Border Patrol agent who had Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in his corner.
The campaign was intense, with Reyes running an ad featuring O’Rourke’s mug shot and noting 1990s arrests for burglary and DUI. O’Rourke has described the burglary arrest as a prank gone awry; the charge was dismissed.
O’Rourke is little-known beyond West Texas, a status that changed with the cross-country trip and a Washington Post story last month that referred to him as a “Mexico-loving liberal” who “looks more like a Kennedy than the Kennedys do.”
Aware of hurdles
O’Rourke says he’s aware of potential future hurdles, among them raising money. He says he’s ready to be cloistered in a room to solicit donors, recalling how he steeled himself to dial up his wife’s gynecologist when he ran for Congress in 2012.
“I said, ‘Hey, doc, you know my wife, Amy. This is probably an unusual call for you. … Do you think you could write a check for $500?’ It was incredibly uncomfortable for me to make the call, but she wrote a check for $500.”
If a Cruz-O’Rourke contest came about, it might mark the sharpest contrast on immigration and border security of any 2018 race.
Cruz, speaking on Fox News after President Donald Trump’s Feb. 28 speech to Congress, twice referred to “criminal illegal aliens” as he praised the president’s hard-edged policies.
O’Rourke responded: “You’re seeing someone who approaches Texas and this country out of anxiety and fear, and then you’re seeing, hopefully in us, someone who approaches things out of confidence and strength, someone who sees opportunity where others see threats.”