There’s been a trend in presidential politics over the last 30 years that’s been unmistakable: Democrats lose when they run a well-meaning, highly intelligent bureaucrat like Al Gore, John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton, and they win when they nominate a sharp but also highly intuitive candidate—someone with an indefinable “it” factor—like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke proved throughout his spirited, county-hopping campaign, as well as on Election Day that he has what it takes to be the Democrats’ next political superstar. He might even have what it takes to be president.
What Beto deserves now is not paeans or panegyrics or a free pass to the 2020 nomination but simply an acknowledgment that, in 2018, his political experience can’t possibly be deemed less than Trump’s was in 2016—and he has a form of “it” that offers us a light amidst Trump’s darkness.
At www.newsweek.com
