2020 Democratic candidate and Texas native Beto O’Rourke hasn’t minced words this weekend in his response to Saturday’s shooting in the Texas cities of Midland and Odessa.
A gunman went on a shooting spree in Midland and Odessa on Saturday, leaving 4 dead and 21 injured. Law enforcement said that the suspected shooter, allegedly a white man, was killed during a police shootout.
“I don’t know what the motivation is, we do not yet know the firearms that were used or how they acquired them,” O’Rourke told supporters during a campaign stop on Saturday night after he was alerted to the shooting. “But we do know this is fucked up.”
O’Rourke, whose native city of El Paso experienced a deadly shooting just one a month ago, doubled down on his response on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Expressing his frustration over the country’s high rates of gun violence, the candidate told “State of the Union” host Dana Bash that no other country “comes close.”
“So yes, this is fucked up,” O’Rourke said. “And if we don’t call it out for what it is, if we’re not able to speak clearly, if we’re not able to act decisively, then we will continue to have this kind of bloodshed in America. And I cannot accept that.”
Watch O’Rourke below:
Beto responded to latest shooting in Texas: "This is fucked up" pic.twitter.com/kSCXsClhuk
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 1, 2019
A lot of discussion on Twitter as to whether a POC pol or female pol could get away with such profanity, but I think this works for Beto. He’s speaking ‘white’ here. A lot of white folks will get what he’s saying and that’s really the point. We need more white voters to turn against the GOP on a number of issues, gun control being one of them. If you look at how the 2020 campaigns are shaping up at the Senate, House and state level, gun control is now one of the top 3 issues that Dems are aggressively running on in purple districts. This issue is an absolute killer for the GOP. A sustained focus on this issue could result in the Dems winning 5 or 6 Senate seats, another 20 House seats and the presidency.
Beto is at 2% because he fails to articulate his positions much beyond this. He needs to aim lower than the Presidency and find his more natural level. Losing to Ted Cruz for Senate does not make you Presidential.
He doesn’t have an real shot at the Presidency - but he has a real role as a ‘firebrand’ in the primaries. Throwing F-bombs - making hard comments - provoking actions and more importantly RE-actions from various politicians.
I say let him roar. It’s good stuff.
The Dems need the messaging. I can’t say this enough, because this is how we lose elections to the nutcases on the Right. We don’t control the message; we respond to the bad message the GOP puts out. We need to start initiating the message and stop being coy about this. I say this about the mainstream religion too: the Apostle Paul said we need to be bold in our faith. This idea could make the leap to political messaging. Somehow, the Dems are so coy that no one really knows what they stand for.
Except for this by Beto. We need more like this. Much, much more.
Well, when you’re right, you’re right. This is massively, I fear possibly unfixably at this point, fucked up.