A note from Beto, 10/22:
The turnout at our rallies, the energy that we see in every community in Texas, the excitement and commitment that people from all walks of life are showing -- Democrats, Independents and Republicans -- it's amazing.
I'm as encouraged, as hopeful, as I've ever been.
Today is the first day of Early Voting in Texas. We need to make sure that every single person we've met -- everyone who has come to a town hall or rally, everyone who has answered the door when a volunteer has knocked, all those who responded to our text messages inviting them into the election of our lifetimes -- we need to make sure that they get to the polls and cast their ballot.
Your donation today helps us to reach them and make sure that they get out to decide the election of our lifetimes.
This is our moment of truth. Let's make sure that every single Texan can stand up to be counted.
Beto
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The McAllen Texas CNN Town Hall, which reached the entire nation, might just turn the
tide, get the fence sitters off the fence, and bring Hispanic voters to the
polls, having given them the BEST reasons to do so. Clearly, Beto boils over with new ideas, compassion. eloquence, and shows the polar extreme of the rehashed rhetoric of the Far Right and Ted Cruz lambasting Democrats as "violence-prone Socialists." It is called DIALOGUE. The warm response from the audience made a lot very clear.
Breaking News, from MSNBC: Trump calls Democrat Beto O'Rourke a 'total lightweight' as he swoops into red Texas to boost Sen. Ted Cruz
President Donald Trump tried to stoke fears of socialism Friday as he bashed Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the Democrat pushing to upset Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in red Texas. Ahead of his Monday visit to Houston, Trump called the 46-year-old representative a "total lightweight compared to Ted Cruz" who "comes nowhere near representing the values and desires" of Texans. He suggested O'Rourke wants to "turn Texas into Venezuela" -- deploying rhetoric he has used in an attempt to portray Democrats as dangerous leftists as the GOP tries to defend its congressional majorities on Nov. 6.
CNN Texas Town Hall Beto O'Rourke Intro/Opening 10/18/2018 CNN Breaking News Today
.youtube.com/watch?v=YoQt735Jcmk
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The Dallas Morning News was the first to write about this CNN Town Hall, and pulled out Beto's statement on potentially impeaching Trump
O'Rourke, an El Paso congressman giving up his seat to challenge Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, had previously suggested that he'd support impeaching the president over alleged collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. But he went further while appearing at a CNN town hall from the U.S.-Mexico border town of McAllen, saying that even as members of Congress wait for more evidence to emerge during federal investigations, "I do think there's enough there for impeachment."
"It's not something that I feel totally comfortable with, and perhaps in the heat of the moment I took a step too far," O'Rourke said during Thursday's McAllen town hall at the Performing Arts Center. When moderator Dana Bash asked if he regretted the insult, he said, "I don't know that that's the way I want to be talking in this campaign."
Wednesday, a day after the debate, O'Rourke broke from the mostly positive campaign when he released at least three Cruz attack ads, according to the Texas Tribune. Previously, O'Rourke's television ads have showed him holding campaign events as he's traveled the state.
Thursday's CNN town hall, with 1,000 people in attendance, a handful of whom asked O'Rourke questions, had become contested between the two campaigns. The Cruz campaign had asked CNN to change the format of the event from a town hall to a debate. CNN initially invited both candidates to participate in a town hall, with each candidate appearing separately on stage in individual segments. The network said the Cruz campaign accepted, but later backed out.
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The Austin American Statesman chose to headline the discussion about Ted Cruz's "Propensity to Perfidy," while making explicitly clear to its readers that there was a SOLID REASON for Beto tearing into this in Jonathan Tilove's story:
At a televised CNN Town Hall at the McAllen Performing Arts Center, political correspondent Dana Bash asked O'Rourke about "taking a page" from Trump's primary playbook.
O'Rourke replied: "So there have been untold dollars spent on TV ads that are lies, that are dishonest, trying to scare you about me, trying to incite fear. I went through a whole debate at SMU with Sen. Cruz where he made up one story after another and so, at the very outset (at Tuesday's debate), when he started out with yet another lie, I decided that I could either spend the rest of the debate responding to every single dishonest thing that he's said or make sure that everyone understood exactly what he's doing.I said, look, he's dishonest, it's one of the reasons that he got tagged with this nickname and that nickname resonates because it's true," O'Rourke said.
"But I got to tell you it's not something I feel totally comfortable with and perhaps, in the heat of the moment, I took a step too far.""I don't know that that's the way that I want to be talking in this campaign," O'Rourke continued.
But, he said, "to not answer these attacks when your opponent says you want to legalize heroin or take everyone's guns away, or you want to open the borders, it can invite confusion or questions by people," O'Rourke said. "I want to make sure people know that that's not true and that that's dishonest."
Bash asked O'Rourke if he didn't enter the debate planning to use that line."I was not," O'Rourke said.
But Bash noted Cruz's reply, in which he said O'Rourke's pollsters must have told him he had to go on the attack."That's another lie," O'Rourke said. "I don't have a pollster. I don't poll."
O'Rourke likened a House vote on impeachment to an indictment -- it's then the Senate's job to hold a trial and determine whether to vote to convict and remove the president from office -- and said that there was now enough evidence of obstruction of justice by the president to warrant a "yes" vote on impeachment. But, he said, impeachment is not the "mission" of his campaign, that he doesn't bring it up on the campaign trail, and that he hasn't signed on to any impeachment resolutions in the House.
Sen. Ted Cruz made his case Thursday for an endorsement from The Dallas Morning News' editorial board, a prize that has eluded him the other five times he's appeared on ballots in Texas."It's fair to say this editorial board and I have not had the best relations," he said. "I do think that this board has believed a caricature that is less than accurate.
"Cruz pitched himself as a conservative who cares about Texans, avoids pettiness and is far more pragmatic than his reputation. He faced pointed questions about his relatively scant list of bipartisan achievement and what responsibility he bears to speak out against President Donald Trump if, as he says, he has Trump's ear and credibility with conservatives and moderates alike. "Some Republicans are willing to defend the indefensible, and I'm not going to do that," Cruz said. But neither does he want to get sucked into the maelstrom of near-daily controversies emanating from the White House. "At times national reporters seem to think Stormy Daniels is the most important person on the face of the planet," he said, referring to the porn actress who accused Trump of a sexual liaison while the first lady was home with their infant son.
"I think Texans are much more interested in do they have a job. What kind of future do their kids have?"Not counting next month, Cruz has faced Texas voters five times, each time without The News' recommendation. In February, The News endorsed Cruz's little-known opponent in the GOP primary, Houston energy lawyer Stefano di Stefano.
"Cruz's elbows have been so sharp and his disdain for deal-making so pronounced, that he's often stymied his own party's agenda," the editorial read, citing his role in the 16-day government shutdown in fall 2013.
In February 2016, ahead of the state's GOP presidential primary, The News recommended Ohio Gov. John Kasich. "As much as we'd like to see a Texan in the White House, we fear that Cruz's brand of politics is more about disruption than governing and threatens to take the Republican Party to a dark place," the editorial board wrote.
(Article changed on October 22, 2018 at 14:16)