Los Angeles Times - 02.11.2019

A6 WST LATIMES.COM

THE NATION

■■■ ELECTION 2020 ■■■

DES MOINES — Beto
O’Rourke abruptly ended
his presidential bid Friday,
bowing to the realities of tep-
id fundraising and an under-
whelming performance that
never matched the hype that
swept him into the Demo-
cratic contest.
The former congressman
from El Paso announced his
decision on Twitter, as erst-
while rivals gathered in Des
Moines for a party bash that
kicked off the rush to the
Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses —
a contest in which O’Rourke
hadn’t mattered very much.
“Our campaign has al-
ways been about seeing
clearly, speaking honestly,
and acting decisively,” he
wrote. “In that spirit I am an-
nouncing that my service to
the country will not be as a
candidate or as the nomi-
nee.”
Later, speaking to a small
gathering of disconsolate
supporters in chilly down-
town Des Moines, O’Rourke
pledged to remain “in the
middle of this fight” and said
he would do all he could
to help the eventual nomi-
nee.
“This has been the honor
of my lifetime,” he said,
ringed by supporters as he
stood on a wooden soapbox
with his name stenciled on it.
“I love you all and know I’ll be
seeing you down the road.”
His exit was a dramatic —
if not unexpected — come-
down for the 47-year-old for-
mer political phenom.

Waging an uphill battle

for the U.S. Senate in 2018,

O’Rourke raised a stunning

$80 million and built a na-

tional following by nearly

besting Republican incum-

bent Ted Cruz in their

deeply conservative state.

With his toothy grin and

tousled hair, O’Rourke was

likened to the Kennedys. His

fan base included former

President Obama and

Oprah Winfrey, among other

celebrities. He was the sub-

ject of an HBO documentary

and was ushered into the

presidential contest with his

portrait on the cover of Van-

ity Fair magazine.

The trajectory was

mostly downward from

there.

There was little to make

O’Rourke stand out in a field

that, at one point, reached

two dozen contestants. His

positions were mostly

standard Democratic fare:

gun control, paid family

leave, universal healthcare,

LGBTQ rights, a $15-per-

hour minimum wage, cam-

paign finance reform, a more

humane immigration policy.

His campaign was ama-

teurish — at least before he

gave in and surrounded him-

self with some more sea-

soned professionals — and

often seemed aimless.

The spring day he an-

nounced his policy to fight

global warming, he was in

Yosemite Park — invisible to

a national audience for all in-

tents — on a hike with a local

climate change researcher

and an environmental jus-

tice advocate

“His chances at the presi-

dential level were never

really good and he never was

anywhere near a top-tier

candidate,” said Jim Hen-

son, who closely watched

O’Rourke’s rise and fall as

head of the Texas Politics

Project at the University of

Texas at Austin.

“From the beginning, the

attributes that made him

seem like an attractive presi-

dential candidate were

based on a very different

kind of race,” Henson said.

“They weren’t likely to trans-

fer into the very different na-

ture of a presidential nomi-

nating contest. Especially

one this crowded.”

O’Rourke finally seemed

to find his voice and purpose

when tragedy struck his

hometown. In August, a

gunman targeting Latinos

killed 22 people at a Walmart

in El Paso.

Overnight, the former

congressman turned his

campaign into a crusade for

gun control, breaking

sharply with others in the

party by calling for a manda-

tory buyback of military-

style assault weapons. “Hell,

yes, we’re going to take your

AR-15, your AK-47,” he said

at the Democrats’ third

presidential debate in Hous-

ton, drawing no seconds

from his rivals.

As a candidate,

O’Rourke seemed liberated.

He abandoned the conven-

tional stops in Iowa and

other early-voting states

and blazed his own, less con-

ventional path, visiting soup

kitchens, rehab centers and

scenes of racial and domes-

tic terrorism.

But if O’Rourke was ener-

gized, voters were less so. He

barely registered in polls

and his fundraising slowed

to a trickle compared with

the torrent of his Senate

campaign and its aftermath.

After raising more than

$6 million in March in his

first 24 hours as a candidate,

he pulled in just $4.5 million

for the three months ending

Sept. 30.

Henson said there is still

time for O’Rourke to enter

the 2020 race against Texas’

senior Republican senator,

John Cornyn.

“The conditions now are

a lot different than they

would have been had he got-

ten in at the beginning” with

several Democrats already

in the race, Henson said.

“But it will be the topic of a

lot of discussion in Texas

this weekend.”

O’Rourke, however,

seemed to rule out any inter-

est in the Senate — as he has

over the last several months,

adamantly and repeatedly

— with his statement that he

had no intention of running

for any other office.

Barabak reported from San

Francisco and Mason from

Des Moines.

O’Rourke drops out of presidential race

The ex-congressman

from Texas entered

the campaign on a

wave of hype but

sank from contention.

By Mark Z. Barabak
and Melanie Mason

BETO O’ROURKEcampaigns in Texas this month. On Friday, he told supporters

after exiting the presidential race: “This has been the honor of my lifetime.”

Tony GutierrezAssociated Press

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