Someone my family knows well — let’s just call her an old family friend to protect the subject of this, uh, sensitive story — for years battled a nasty plantar wart on the ball of her foot. Our friend and her doctors tried just about everything shy of amputation. Salicylic acid treatments. Prescription medicines. Cryotherapy. Immunotherapy. Minor surgeries (electrodesiccation and curettage). She couldn’t get rid of it. That freeloading wart just wouldn’t take the hint.
The unpleasant growth hung around so long she gave it a name: Stuey.
She should have called it Beto. As in Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the former congressman, three-time high-stakes political loser, and leftist hanger-on. He is the wart, the Stuey if you will, of American leftist politics. The multimillionaire — made so with a huge assist from his very wealthy daddy-in-law — has been rejected by Texas and national Democrats in races for U.S. Senate and governor and in his ill-fated bid for the White House.
Like a pesky plantar wart, Robbie has no intention of going away mad because he has no intention of going away. He’s an unrequited lover in need of a restraining order. A Texas judge recently slapped him with one.
Powering ‘Deceptive Acts’
Seeking a return to political relevance, O’Rourke resurfaced earlier this year alongside failed vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a liberal rally/political stunt near Houston. You talk about looking for love in all the wrong places — or at least with all the wrong people. It’s part of O’Rourke’s strategy to force Texans to have to think about the has-been again.
Since his crushing defeat to incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas’ 2022 gubernatorial election, O’Rourke has regrouped. He has poured himself into his collectivist-sounding Powered by People, a left-wing hybrid political action committee that targets “likely Texas Democrats” and registers them to vote. It’s got a bit of Zuckbucks vibe to it. O’Rourke has been using Powered by People to host town halls and push his name and face back into the minds of Americans, one of the great no-one-asked-for-this moments in modern politics.
He’s also been using the PAC to power Texas House Democrats’ temper tantrum over a Republican-led redistricting proposal they don’t like. He’s been told to stop. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asserts that he hasn’t.
On Friday, Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey granted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for a temporary restraining order blocking O’Rourke and his PAC from raising funds for Democrats, particularly covering the expenses of AWOL lawmakers — including a $500-per-day fine for dereliction of duties.
On Aug. 3, a reported 62 Democrats fled the House to deny a quorum and stall a vote on the mid-decade redistricting plan they have blasted as a gerrymander. Interestingly, the lawmakers have absconded to blue states that include Illinois, one of the most gerrymandered states in the country.
On Tuesday, the Texas Senate approved the revised maps while House Democrats remained AWOL.
In her order, Fahey found the state would be “irreparably injured” if the court did not stop O’Rourke and his group from picking up the tab for the missing-in-action Dems. Specifically, the judge wrote, the leftists’ fundraising conduct “constitutes false, misleading, or deceptive acts” under Texas law, and that they “are raising and utilizing political contributions from Texas consumers to pay for the personal expenses of Texas legislators, in violation of Texas law.”
‘Imprisonment Is Absolutely Necessary’
Paxton alleges O’Rourke has violated the restraining order. The attorney general on Tuesday filed a motion seeking contempt charges against O’Rourke, accusing the political opportunist of “continuing to fundraise and pay for the personal expenses of runaway Democrat legislators.” Paxton is asking the court to fine and jail the liberal activist.
“Given Robert Francis’s vulgar disdain for the rule of law and immense personal wealth, imprisonment is absolutely necessary to persuade him to obey the lawful restraining order issued by the Tarrant County court,” Paxton wrote in a press release.
Paxton’s motion charges that O’Rourke continued to solicit donations through ActBlue at a subsequent rally, where he directly referred to the restraining order.
“And one of the worst things that we can do to Ken Paxton is to, right now, choose to donate to have the backs of these fighters by texting [to a fundraising site]. … He is trying to stop us from raising the resources they need to ultimately prevail and come through and we are not going to let him stop us. Are you with me on that?” O’Rourke told a crowd at a Powered by People event over the weekend in Fort Worth, dubbed “The People vs. The Power Grab: A Rally to Fight Texas Redistricting.”
O’Rourke accused Paxton of lying, calling him a “thug” on X.
‘The Highest and Best Use’
It’s clear that grandstanding Beto is using the left’s current political theater production for his campaign purposes ahead. In a long-winded answer last month to KVUE-Austin reporter Ashley Goudeau’s question about whether he plans to run for office again, O’Rourke said, “You know I’m not afraid of a statewide run. …” He should be. He’s not had a good deal of success in that arena.
O’Rourke then laid on Goudeau a word salad feast that would make Kamala Harris proud.
“But I want to make sure that I, just like millions of my fellow Texans, are doing all that we can with what we have just where we are at this moment of truth, because the future, the fate of this country really depends on what we do right now,” he said. “And so that’s why you see me out there doing everything I can, joined by a lot of other people doing the same.”
Just as long as Texans know that “everything” includes making another run at political office. Why? Because Beto believes “that’s the highest and best use of what I can offer this state.” Yes, the gasbag really did utter that sentence.
Some of the comments under the interview say it all.
“Beto – how many times does Texas have to say no? Take a hint,” one viewer said.
“This dude still?” another wrote.
And this question from a commenter, “Where will he lose next?”
The future of losing is wide open to a guy who can’t take no for an answer. Beto may lose again, but it seems Texas will never lose him, as long as there’s something to run for. He’s the politicking wart that won’t go away.
Perhaps he should change his name to Stuey.