CORPUS CHRISTI – There was hardly a moment when the Richardson Performance Hall at Del Mar College was not filled with the deafening cheers from supporters of Texas senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso).
Even an hour before O’Rourke even entered the building cheers could be heard outside the performance hall emanating from the hundreds gathered within.
Young people in particular are drawn to O’Rourke’s message and many of them were in attendance, along with congressional political candidates Eric Holguin and Joe Kennedy.
O’Rourke expanded on why the younger Texans are attracted to his policies.
“These young people have been counted out for so long. No political consultant would ever allow me to spend time at community colleges and high schools with young people because historically they haven’t voted. Our contention is they haven’t voted because candidates haven’t shown up to listen to them, incorporate their stories into our campaign and service that we want to provide,” O’Rourke said.
House Representative for Massachusetts’s fourth congressional district Joe Kennedy (D) introduced O’Rourke to the stage, but not after an impassioned speech.
“As I stand here before you, I tell you with all that I’ve got that our nation’s eyes are on you, on our nation’s heart in Texas,” Kennedy had to shout through applause. “You all have this incredible opportunity to send a message that will ripple across this country and around the world about the politics that we believe, about the type of nation we could be. That knows its strength isn’t about how high a wall we can build, but about decency and the child they want to separate. That health care is a right for every single human being and every single American, not something to shut down our government to deny coverage to 30 million people.”
O’Rourke took to the stage by riding a skateboard clear across the stage to the sound of thundering applause and the voracious chant, “Beto! Beto! Beto!”
O’Rourke stayed on message and re-told stories from previous campaign stops and debates.
While O’Rourke’s campaign methods are nothing new, they have been gaining traction lately as evidenced by Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez’s victory in New York’s 14th congressional district against incumbent Joe Crowley.
This method revolves around literally crowd-sourcing funds from ordinary people instead of Political Action Committees.
According to the Texas Tribune, O’Rourke raised $10.4 million in the second quarter of 2018. His opponent, incumbent Senator Ted Cruz (R), only raised $4.6 million in the same amount of time.
O’Rourke’s campaign reports that 70 percent of donations come from Texas citizens at an average contribution of $33.
“People are excited that we are running a positive campaign. We are defining ourselves by our ambitions, the big things we want this country to do, not our fears, not the small stuff, not the pettiness, not the partisanship,” O’Rourke said. “We haven’t seen a campaign like this in Texas in a very long time, and to have a campaign without a dime from a single Political Action Committee (PAC), or corporation or special interest… This is one of the most amazing things at one of the most divided moments in this country’s history.”
O’Rourke takes pride in the fact that he has visited every county in the state of Texas. In doing so he claims to have heard first-hand the populace’s idea of “Texan values.”
“One of the most exciting things is to know that we’re not going to be defined by SB (Senate Bill) 6, this effort to scare parents about transgender kids in bathrooms. We’re not going to be defined by the fact that it’s perfectly legal to fire someone for being gay in this state, or prevent them from adopting a child with 30,000 kids in the foster care system. You can be too gay to adopt a kid in Texas,” O’Rourke said. “That’s not us, because we’ve been to every single one of the counties and we all want every single one of us to be able to live to our full potential, to be welcomed in this state and to stand for the civil rights of every single one of us.”