Beto O’Rourke should face reality and drop out – Washington Examiner

Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate in Houston confirmed what we already knew: Beto O’Rourke needs to sit down, face reality, and drop out.

From the beginning of his presidential campaign, O’Rourke has come across as smug rather than substantive. A mediocre man and example of “white privilege” if there ever was one, the sheer audacity of his campaign launch was astounding: Imagine losing a Senate race, but thinking you somehow then deserve to become president. And in the now-famous Vanity Fair cover story in light of his campaign launch, O’Rourke said he “was born to be in it.”

Too bad he wasn’t born with any qualifications or talent. O’Rourke’s inadequacies have never been more clear than after the most recent ABC debate.

Within 10 seconds of opening his mouth for the first time, O’Rourke invoked the recent El Paso, Texas, mass shooting to exploit the tragedy to stump on gun control and reinvigorate his campaign, blaming it on President Trump, to boot. That’s right: His first order of business was to attempt to cash in on a massacre to score political points. Party affiliation aside, all sensible Americans know that such a shameless man ought not be president.

Now add in O’Rourke’s reiterated disdain for gun owners and Second Amendment rights. On the debate stage, he said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” and continued to push his fake narrative of a “mandatory gun buyback,” aka forcible gun seizure.

When an ABC moderator asked O’Rourke, “Why are you the most qualified candidate to address the [political] divide?” he immediately pivoted back to the El Paso shooting and said that President Trump “poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country.”

Yes, that’s right: O’Rourke’s answering to healing the divide is that Trump, and by implication, his supporters, are racist, evil, and a deadly threat to minorities. Then he basically called America a racist country, saying that the true start of the country was August 20, 1619, when the first slave was brought here. O’Rourke promised to sign a reparations bill to address this, because there’s nothing less divisive than “reparations” supported by less than a third of the country.

We get it. As a straight white dude in the Democratic Party of 2019, a certain amount of pandering is required. O’Rourke’s hands are basically tied. But this guy is obviously not capable of being a unifying president in any way, shape, or form, and it’s time for him to give it a rest.

Remember: In the lead-up to the debate, O’Rourke was averaging less than 3% in the polls. Voters just aren’t drawn to a mediocre white dude who thinks standing on a table is a personality, especially when it’s paired with radical policy, divisive rhetoric, and obnoxious grandstanding.

It doesn’t look like any of this is getting better. O’Rourke once again resorted to speaking his broken Spanish on the debate stage in a gross attempt to pander to Hispanic voters who he offensively assumes can’t understand English.

It’s never been more clear than after tonight: This man should never become president. Let’s just hope O’Rourke finally puts this joke to bed and stops subjecting us all to his midlife crisis of a campaign.