BETO O’ROURKE: POLITICAL GENIUS OR UNREALISTIC DREAMER
Robert Dohrman, College Station High School
When Congressman Beto O’Rourke announced his campaign for Senate on March 31, 2017, the young West Texas Democrat caused significant political waves, as Democrats have not won a Texas Senate election in 30 years (Hagan). Then, he caused an even greater stir when he disavowed the strategy of political consultants and fundraising from political action committees in favor of a 254-county tour of the entire state of Texas (Benson). This extraordinary action raises an important question: is Beto O’Rourke the political genius of this era, or is he just another flamboyant politician destined to lose in the end?
To answer this question, one must first consider the qualities that make a genius. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a genius as a person who has “great and rare natural skill” and is “especially skilled at a particular activity.” Dean Simonton, a psychology professor at the University of California-Davis, expands on this, explaining that geniuses must have “endurance and enthusiasm” (Cloud). In politics, this means that one must have enough skill and enthusiasm to win an election, and enough endurance to survive a political campaign.
Though O’Rourke may fit some of these categories as a political campaigner and may bring novel new ideas to the table, because the ultimate goal of politicians and their campaigns is to win an election, the only true measure of his genius is election day. If the congressman is truly a genius, then his ability logically will translate into electoral success. However, election day has not yet passed, and in order to understand arguments both for and against his political genius, one must consider history’s successful political geniuses in relation to O’Rourke and his candidacy. While this eccentric young leader may bear some resemblance to political success stories of elections past, the argument remains strong that he is destined to fail.
Historically, underdogs in the world of Texas politics have overcome significant barriers to their success. The most prominent example of this is former Governor Ann Richards, who beat incumbent Clayton Williams in the election of 1990. According to Mary Rogers, a veteran of Richards campaigns dating back to the 1970s, Williams started the campaign season with a 27-point lead in the polls. The media wrote off Richards’s underfunded and understaffed campaign as doomed to fail, so rather than use expensive consultants (which was the norm at the time), they worked “precinct by precinct” to build their support (Rogers). Rogers then further explains that by appealing to women and ethnic minorities as an outsider of politics, Richards further built her voting base for the 1990 election. Roberto Suro corroborates this, explaining that populist themes were key to the Richards victory over the incumbent governor.
Through these methods, Richards established her political genius, as she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds in a political environment that certainly does not encourage upset victories. Though some may argue that she only won the election due to her opponent’s crude comments about women, the reality of this argument is that Richards’ political skill allowed her to fully take advantage of these mistakes, further proving her genius. She represents a textbook political genius, as she demonstrated an especially high level of skill in her political activities, as well as the enthusiasm and energy required to win a tough race. Her political genius, as well as her stunning success in Texas politics, makes Richards a strong reference point for all future Texas underdogs.
Similar to Governor Richards, O’Rourke faces a severely difficult environment. Many polls and political experts suggest that the Senate candidate trails incumbent Ted Cruz by a significant amount. According to a Public Policy Polling opinion poll from January of 2018, O’Rourke trails Cruz by nearly 1 O percentage points. The poll also found that more than three in five Texans had no opinion of or had not heard of the Senate hopeful. Charles Cook, political analyst and editor of The Cook Political Report, supports this poll with his conclusion that the Senate election is “likely” to result in a Republican victory.
Clearly, at this point in the race for the Senate, Congressman O’Rourke faces an uphill battle; all signs point to defeat. However, victory is certainly not out of reach. As previously mentioned, Ann Richards began her campaign with a polling deficit of 27 points, a number nearly three times greater than O’Rourke’s. Additionally, the two candidates share more than their initial struggle. Like Richards, O’Rourke is running on a populist platform with grassroots strategies to reach every voter. His messaging seemingly denounces all that is commonplace in American politics today: consultants, corporate money, partisanship, and career politicians (Benson). This anti-establishment, populist plank bears a strong resemblance to Richards’s perception as an “outsider” when she ran for governor.
By making these stances key to his campaign, O’Rourke is clearly implementing strategies that have defined previous political geniuses’ campaigns. Furthermore, O’Rourke’s campaign has dedicated itself to visiting all 254 counties in Texas, a strategy only rivaled in extent by Richards’s dedication to precinct level get-out-the-vote campaigning (Benson). In this aspect, O’Rourke undoubtedly replicates the grassroots strategy and the enthusiasm that worked for political geniuses before him. He has already proven his skill in using these strategies: for the 2018 primary (which O’Rourke won), Democrats voted at nearly record levels
(Debenedetti). Through replication of tested campaigning techniques, O’Rourke has attained an important victory on his path to the Senate. Because he has already succeeded in one important aspect of this election cycle, O’Rourke has proven himself to be a skilled and energetic campaigner. In this regard, the congressman certainly meets the threshold of political genius. Overall, Beto O’Rourke’s success at this point, as well as his strong campaign strategies, build the case for his political genius.
On the other hand, Congressman O’Rourke may simply be a disillusioned politician doomed to lose in the end. This point of view seems particularly logical when one compares his campaign to that of Barack Obama, who is both an extremely successful politician and an energetic campaigner. Like O’Rourke, Obama started many of his campaigns with polling deficits that seemed difficult to overcome.
However, unlike O’Rourke, the former president used immense amounts of data, an army of political consultants, and outside money to bolster his campaigns. For example, during the 2012 campaign, then-President Obama collected polling data from “29,000 people in Ohio alone” over the course of just one month and created 66,000 simulations of the election daily (Scherer). All this data clearly aided the President, who won both Ohio and the election overall. Despite the success of this “big data” operation, Congressman O’Rourke, as previously discussed, has disavowed this form of campaigning for a more grassroots effort.
Additionally, the two men contrast on their stance regarding political consultants, as Obama’s 2008 campaign utilized more than 90 groups of data analysts in order to win the election (Ambinder). In this case as well, O’Rourke differs with Obama, as he has refused to hire any political consultants to help him with his election, instead choosing to meet as many voters as possible in grassroots-style campaign stops at the county level. The third principle area in which these two men differ Is the use of outside funding. Open Secrets, a non-profit organization that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections, noted that in 2012, outside groups such as political action committees spent approximately $130 million in support of President Obama.
In contrast, outside groups have spent zero dollars in support of Beto O’Rourke, a development that occurred due to his strong opposition to outside spending. Obama’s skill at generating funding for his campaign, both directly to himself and to outside groups, was one of the defining factors of his genius. By denouncing this manner of funding generation as antithetical to his campaign, O’Rourke has built a distinct difference between himself and the former President, a development which deviates significantly from the norm. Clearly, their attitudes toward outside spending further separate these two politicians.
While O’Rourke may be cultivating his populist appeal with his campaign strategies, one could logically argue that this decision proves his disconnection from reality. After all, President Obama is a far more modern example of a political genius than Ann Richards. It seems counterintuitive to disregard Obama’s modern strategies and technology, which have an enormously successful track record, in favor of 30-year-old populist techniques.
Additionally, in a state with a population of nearly 27 million, the most logical course of action in this political era is to organize them somehow, just as the Obama campaign did with the millions of voters that it successfully managed during its campaigns. In short, Congressman O’Rourke’s decision to buck the political norm and wisdom that the Obama administration built seems as though it is counterintuitive and even illogical. This seemingly poor reasoning from the O’Rourke campaign might lead many to believe that O’Rourke is simply an unrealistic political dreamer.
On the other hand, one could reason that bucking the political norm is exactly what O’Rourke needs to do in order to win. Ann Richards certainly did not win her election by running a typical campaign; therefore, there is no reason to think that Beto O’Rourke (or any other Texas Democrat) will either. Furthermore, in deeply Republican Texas, one could logically argue that a Democratic politician ought to spend his or her energy on broader, populist appeals, rather than on mining data about the state’s citizens. Both sides considered, no one truly knows what will work for O’Rourke, as the election cycle is still in its opening stages. Overall, despite the O’Rourke campaign’s counterintuitive decision making, one can still reason that the Senate hopeful is a political genius and is acting as such.
All in all, Congressman O’Rourke certainly has a strong chance to become a member of the U.S. Senate, but an equally strong chance to fall short. Though he certainly shares many traits with historical political geniuses, whether he is the political genius who will win against all odds remains undecided. Bucking the political norm does not necessarily make someone a political genius (though many take this approach), and repudiating the wisdom that seemed to work so well just six years ago does not intuitively make sense. Ultimately, however, the election day results represent any campaign’s ultimate goal and therefore are the only true meter with which to measure a politician’s genius. When Texans head to the polls on November 6, 2018, they, not a political analyst or columnist, will resolve definitively the question of Beto O’Rourke’s political genius.
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