Last December, it was already clear that there would be a huge 2020 field of Democratic primary candidates and in this diary I suggested that one metric we might use for sorting through them was to focus on their backgrounds, their broad life experiences, and see what strengths and weaknesses that might show us. Has experience X shaped a passion for social justice or experience Y a desire to heal conflict? The GOPers keep giving us incredibly unqualified people who don’t know anything, so let’s look at our candidates’ education, but not just in narrow terms of grades or prestige of schools, but in terms of whether they broke from the cookie cutter mold of political grooming. Let’s see if particular candidates have developed skills that either help them connect with voters on the campaign trail or could be useful in governing and leadership.
I didn’t suggest this as an alternative to policy proposals and platforms (I’m a bit of a policy wonk), nor as an alternative to charisma and energy and “electability” (whatever the last means in the Age of Trump). Polling and fundraising, etc. are all also important. Other people and diaries can and should focus on those and, I’m pleased to see, they have done so.
So, as each of our candidates have announced (or formed an exploratory committee), I have posted a “life experience” profile diary the Friday following said announcement. (A few candidates had already announced last year, so I played catch-up with them one weekend.) Some candidates have been easier to research on the web than others and that partly explains some differences in length of diaries—as does age, time in public life, etc. I haven’t intended to make these either endorsements or warnings, but I have not tried to hide my own biases as someone from the progressive wing of the party who also thinks its time for more women and minorities to shine. I have found that I actively dislike only one of the announced primary candidates and will gladly get behind whomever is our nominee. In order writing, I have now profiled Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Former HUD Sec. Julian Castro (D-TX), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-02), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rep. John K. Delaney (D-MD-06), Entrepreneur Andrew Yang (D), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-South Bend, IN), Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO)—thirteen in all! Since former Rep. Beto O’ Rourke announced today (Thurs), this is his profile which will post Friday afternoon (4-5 pm, EDT) as usual.
Don’t worry about the size of the field, folks. The debates, town halls, and other events (actual campaigning) will winnow the field—probably before the IA caucuses. Right now, it’s exciting (and a welcome contrast to 2016) to see the energy and diversity of the Democratic field and the way that most of the campaigns are highlighting big ideas and bold visions for the future. So, let’s look at Beto’s life experience as he joins this field!
One negative note, and this applies to WAY more candidates than Beto, is that I am sick and tired of campaign websites without any candidate bio, without any issues page, just a place to sign up, shop or donate. That is a huge disservice to voters and, especially, to primary voters trying to decide between candidates. Beto just announced today (Thurs.), so maybe he will change this in a few days, but numerous high profile Dem candidates (naming no names) STILL have crappy campaign websites weeks after announcing. C’mon, Dems! Get it together and fix this instead of filling my email with more moneybegging. Instead, show me on an issues page WHY I should donate to you! (Rant over.)
Early Life
Robert Francis O’Rourke (b. 26 September 1972) was born and raised in El Paso, TX to Pat Francis O’Rourke and his second wife, Melissa Martha Williams O’Rourke. His ancestry is Irish and Welsh, but, living in a heavily Mexican-American city, his parents gave him the Spanish nickname “Beto” partly to distinguish him from his namesake grandfather—and it stuck. Beto’s mother, Melissa, was a small business owner—owning and operating a furniture store. She is also the stepdaughter of Fred Koth, who was Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy. Beto’s father, Pat, was an associate of TX Gov. Mark White (D) (serving from 1983 to 1987) and he was the Texas state chair of Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns. Pat O’Rourke switched parties in the 1990s and had several unsuccessful campaigns for various offices as a Republican. So, Beto grew up in a political family—very Democratic during his formative years. (Pat O’Rourke was killed in 2001 in an auto accident.)
Beto grew up in a family that was upper middle class to moderately wealthy. He lived in the Kern Park neighborhood east of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), which is a gated community. Beto attended the Escuela Montessori Del Valle preschool, part of the network of Montessori Schools named after visionary educator Maria Montessori and based on scientific observations of children and their learning strategies. (Full confession: Both my daughters had Montessori pre-school and did after school programs at a Montessori institution while they were in public elementary schools. As a parent and educator, I am biased toward the Montessori movement—and they are more affordable than most private educational institutions at any level. My wife and I were struggling close to the bone and still paying off our own educational loans when our daughters were small, but the Montessori preschools were better quality AND more affordable than either private or public alternatives at the time.)
Beto attended the Carlos Rivera Elementary School and the Mesita Elementary School in El Paso. Both were and are highly ranked public schools in the El Paso Independent School District. For two years, Beto attended El Paso High School (oldest high school in the city), part of the El Paso Independent School District and serving the West Central part of the city. Then he transferred to Woodbury Forest School, a private, all-boys, boarding school founded in 1889 and located in Madison County, VA. So, Beto has some experience in public education (very important at a time when our public schools are under assault from everything from “parochaid” to homeschooling to charter schools—all designed to make sure that the poor and even the working classes struggle to get quality education for their children). But, as a child of some privilege, he also was exposed to an elite system early on—as we also saw for such candidates as Kirsten Gillibrand, John K. Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, and Andrew Yang. I have to wonder if that will give an edge in connecting to voters to candidates whose early education was completely in the public schools, such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sander, Julian Castro, Corey Booker, and Amy Klobuchar—all of whose pre-college education were in the public schools which educate the vast majority of American voters. Or, does exposure to elite institutions give Beto and others a necessary background for success in leadership? One small point in favor of the latter is that a student-run honor code is central to Woodbury Forest School which would (jn theory) foster independence, a developed sense of conscience and responsibility as well as honor. On the other, the college admissions cheating scandal has reinforced the rigged nature of our entire society and the sense of entitlement that the well off have that leaves the rest of us fighting for scraps. I hope not only Beto, but all our candidates, are questioned strongly about this—and about their commitment to quality public education for all. We don’t need any more Secretaries of Education without any experience in either public school or in classroom teaching.
After graduating high school and prior to attending university, Beto was an intern for Rep. Ron Coleman (D-TX-16). That introduced him early on to the workings of Congress—and to the problematic treatment of unpaid interns.
Education:
Beto O’Rourke earned his only degree at Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia is an Ivy League research university founded in 1754 (as King’s College) and located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City. It is one of the most prestigious of the elite universities in this nation, but the only previous U.S. president it has produced is Barack Obama, so it is not quite the cookie-cutter path to the White House that Harvard and Yale are. There are 2 features at Columbia that I count as real strengths: One is it’s setting in New York City. Like most of NYC’s great institutions of higher education, the city is part of the educational experience. The world comes to NYC and NYC has been one of the major entry points of the nation’s immigrants. Today, London, Paris, Edinburgh, Rome, Tokyo, are all incredibly diverse cities. New York was BORN diverse and has only gotten more so. It would be very difficult to live there as a student from somewhere else and not have one’s mind broadened just by that setting (though I am sure some manage it).
The other feature of Columbia I count as a huge strength is its core curriculum drawn from the Great Books of the Western World (see also The Center for the Study of Great Ideas) and emphasizing students’ direct encounter with primary texts (not summaries in textbooks) in all the wide fields of liberal education. Originally, this canon was rightly criticized for exclusive focus on “dead white men” and recent editions (and recent curricula in schools centered around classic liberal education) have broadened the canon to include more diverse writers. But although one needs to encounter and wrestle with the best of other cultures, there is much to be said for knowing the primary texts of one’s own culture—themselves diverse—and wrestling with and debating the varied points of view in a “Great Conversation” over the centuries.
However, it is probable that Beto was not more than an average student. No teacher Columbia remembers teaching him. Over 50% of Ivy League students graduate with honors and these are listed, but Beto did not, meaning that he had to have graduated in the bottom 50% of his class. Instead, at Columbia, he was known for leading the heavyweight rowing team and playing in punk rock bands (none of which is a bad thing). Some of our better presidents were average students at best (FDR comes quickly to mind), but I admit that, as an educator, I am biased in favor of good students. Beto graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in English.
Pre-political Career:
After being exposed to the band “Bad Brains” in high school, Beto became a fan of punk music and learned to play bass and drums. At university, he formed the punk band “Foss” and they toured the U.S. and Canada in summers and cut a record in 1993 on West Breed Records called The El Paso Pussycats. O’Rourke played drums for the band “Swedes” who released an album Summer in 1995. Beto considers this experience to have been extremely valuable:
For whatever reason (possibly monetary), O’Rourke did not continue with a musical career after university. Instead, he held a variety of different jobs: After graduation he worked as a live-in caretaker and art mover before helping his uncle with an internet start-up company. He later took a job at H. W. Wilson Company as a proofreader while writing stories and songs in his spare time.
Returning to El Paso in 1998 to help stem the “brain drain,” Beto Stanton Street Technology Group, an internet services and software company that his wife, Amy, now runs. For a few years the company also published an online (and briefly print) journal called Stanton Street that Beto modeled on The Village Voice and New York Press. During all this time, he was heavily involved in civic life and non-profit work.
Such a varied career might be seen by many to mean that Beto is not a serious political player. I don't see it that way. I think such varied experience is one reason that even after 3 terms in Congress and the closest U.S. Senate race that any Texas Democrat has run for 2 and ½ decades, Beto can and does still successfully portray himself as a political outsider. He did grow up in a political family, but he clearly did not grow up wanting to be president or even a U. S. Senator. He seems to have come to politics out of a profound moral sense that things in society need fixing and that he can be part of the solution.
It also means that he can connect to voters in a way that many career politicians might not. Beto knows what it means to start and run a small business. He understands artists. He knows why Net Neutrality is vital. He understands the importance of the free press as someone who tried to publish an alternative journal. I have been underwhelmed by Beto’s specific policy proposals to date, but I have been convinced that his appeal in retail politics has been more than his Kennedy-esque good looks and his charisma. Finding out his pre-political career goes a long way to explain it to me.
El Paso City Council:
In 2005, Beto O’Rourke successfully ran for El Paso City Council as a Democrat on a platform of downtown renewal. He won and served two terms. He was only partially successful in the renewal he wanted. In 2009, he proposed that El Paso pass a resolution against the War on Drugs and calling for cannabis legalization. Surprisingly, the resolution passed but (not surprisingly) was vetoed by the mayor.
Here I take heart that O’Rourke is a strong opponent of the War on Drugs which, in my view as a non-user, is key to several pressing policy reforms: stabilizing much of Central and South America, sentencing and prison reform and the end of mass incarceration, progress in racial justice and economic justice. I also think that it relevant that O’Rourke has experience as both an activist (outsider) and elected office holder (insider) at the local level. We want a president that is in touch with local leadership and citizens.
U. S. House of Representatives:
Beto O’Rourke challenged longtime Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX-16) in the Democratic primary of 2012. In a heavily Latinx border district, the primary was considered the real contest. He won with 50.5% of the vote, barely avoiding a primary run-off. His support for LGBTQ rights and liberalizing drug laws were contrasted with those of the incumbent and his campaign was largely door-to-door. He defeated his GOP opponent, Barbara Carrasco, in a landslide. O’Rourke served 3 terms, winning reelection in 2014 with 67% of the vote and in 2016 he was opposed only by Green and Libertarian candidates.
While in Congress, O’Rourke held town halls with his district once a month. Along with Rep. Steve Pierce of NM, he tried to get an ombudsman in the Dept. of Homeland Security that would investigate all allegations of violence or human rights violations by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. He consistently supported immigration reform, the DREAM Act, but opposed DACA because of his dislike of Executive Orders, saying, “the motive is noble, but the means are really hard to stomach.”
Some will not like the fact that, in 2016, when then House Minority Leader was challenged for her position as Minority Leader by Rep. Tim Ryan of OH, O’Rourke voted for Ryan because of his belief in term limits and new leadership. His decision to run against Ted Cruz for Senate was partly because he had given himself a limit of 3 terms in the House and promised to serve only 12 years or two terms in the U.S. Senate. (Given the way that the seniority system works in Congress, some will find this naive.)
During his time in Congress, O’Rourke served on the Armed Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee and he was part of the New Democrat Caucus (the Clintonian centrists—although O’Rourke was one of the last superdelegates to endorse HRC in 2016) and the Congressional Arts Caucus.
2018 Senate Campaign:
As nearly everyone who regularly reads DailyKos knows, last year Beto O’Rourke ran for the U. S. Senate against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), possibly the only creature who inhabits the Senate who is more despised nationwide than even Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. O’Rourke was able to out raise Cruz by millions in small donations with no PAC or Superpac money. He campaigned in every county, driving himself and speaking in small towns everywhere. He registered voters at every stop, knowing that his only chance was a huge upsurge in first time voters. O’Rourke came closer than any recent Democrat, but still lost by about 2%--probably in part due to last minute campaigning for Cruz by Donald Trump.
Personal:
O’Rourke was raised Catholic, but religion does not appear to play much role in his life. He married his wife, Amy Hoover Saunders (9 years his junior) in 2005 not in a church, but at her parents’ ranch in Lamy, NM. His father-in-law is a real estate developer and his mother-in-law works at a charter school (which is worrying). The couple have 3 children, Ulysses, Molly, and Henry, all pre-teen. Both Beto and Amy O’Rourke are fluent in Spanish and Amy has actually lived in Guatemala where she worked as a kindergarten teacher.
Beto has a difficulty with the law in his younger days. In May 1995 (about the time he was finishing at Columbia University), he, along with friends, sneaked under the fence at The University of Texas at El Paso (apparently as a prank). They were arrested by UTEP campus police and initially charged with burglary, although the charges were later dropped.
In 1998, O’Rourke was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), i.e., drunk driving. After completing a court-ordered DWI program, these charges were also dismissed. Beto has been open about these previous legal difficulties in his political campaigns and we all want politicians who learn and grow more than we want perfect people. However, considering that both these incidents were after he had already finished university, they reinforce the impression that Beto had a rather extended adolescence and took longer than many in settling down and accepting responsibility. (Of course, the current occupant of the White House has NEVER grown up or accepted responsibility for ANYTHING, but he should never be our standard.)
O’Rourke is the co-author (with Susie Byrd) of Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U. S. and Mexico. Cinco Puentes Press, 2011.
Initial Conclusion:
I still find Beto’s policies light and lacking in enough detail. I also am skeptical that one can easily go from a failed U. S. Senate campaign directly to a successful run for the White House. The last person to accomplish that was Abraham Lincoln.
Yet this examination of Beto’s life experience shows me what he has other than sheer charisma. He has communication skills (bi-lingual ones), passion, a strong moral compass, and experience as a small business owner and civic leader. He has an artist’s sensibilities and raw political talent including incredible fund-raising ability without PACs or Superpacs. He wants to unite people and that is appealing in a divisive time, although (as we saw with Pres. Obama), it can limit one’s ability to govern if the other side simply opposes everything you want and then blames you for lack of bipartisanship. It seems clear that he would prioritize ending the drug war and major immigration reform (possibly including the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency [ICE]) if elected, but he is vague on other matters—at a time when we need a bold vision that is both inspiring AND CONCRETE. I have yet to decide on a primary candidate (although Warren, Harris, and Inslee, in that order, currently lead my list of choices), but, at this point, Beto O’Rourke looks more like a good Vice Presidential running mate than a Democratic nominee. Time will tell if my first impression is right or wrong.