Democrats believed in their hearts that they found the candidate who would defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is the Democrats fair haired boy.
But this ugly video from his past just drove a dagger through the heart of his 2020 challenge to Trump.
The failed Texas Senate candidate rocketed to stardom because of a carefully managed social media presence that turned him into a grassroots fundraising machine.
Even though O’Rourke lost his race against Ted Cruz—despite running in the most favorable environment for Democrats since 2008—“Beto” raised an unheard of 80 million dollars for his Senate bid.
That is Presidential campaign money.
And O’Rourke’s viral videos – he would skateboard in Whataburger parking lots or air drum to “The Who” – and his fundraising prowess had the media comparing him to JFK and ranking him as a top-tier Senate contender.
These staged videos bestowed a sense of authenticity on an Irishmen who was pretending to be Hispanic.
But O’Rourke is not the invincible candidate Democrats believe him to be.
In fact, he is downright strange.
One example is a video from his past.
O’Rourke – who played in a punk rock band in his youth – appears on stage wearing a furry animal costume in one of the more bizarre displays you will ever see.
And O’Rourke’s odd behavior continues to this day.
The failed Senate candidate recently took a road trip where he began posting strange stream-of-consciousness blog posts on Medium.
O’Rourke clearly stole this writing style from Jack Kerouac.
“A lot of big trucks rolling down Pancake Blvd and there aren’t any sidewalks. Gloomy early morning sky in Liberal Kansas. Snow melt on the side of the road where I’m running. I find a vacant lot to cut through to another street, also busy and without sidewalks. I finally get to a smaller road that goes past a mobile home park, then a small subdivision, and out into corn fields to my right and empty fields to my left,” O’Rourke wrote.
If that wasn’t enough, O’Rourke live streamed his dentist cleaning his teeth on his Instagram account.
O’Rourke’s strange behavior makes him a ripe target for Donald Trump’s nicknames and mockery.
Trump has the ability to zero in on his opponents weaknesses and brand them with a nickname that highlights the one characteristic the public dislikes the most about that person.
“Low energy” Jeb and “Crooked” Hillary Clinton were two clear examples of Trump’s negative branding of his opponents in action.
Trump’s ignored O’Rourke for now because he is not officially in the race and the President does not yet regard him as a serious contender.
But O’Rourke’s slightly off behavior also obscures other problems.
In his 20s, a police report stated O’Rourke fled the scene of an accident after crashing his car while allegedly under the influence.
This incident led to the police arresting O’Rourke for a DWI.
If Democrats are looking for a top-tier challenger to Trump, O’Rourke’s sketchy – and bizarre past – could give them pause and send them looking elsewhere.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
