O'Rourke bets shooting will shake up Texas governor's race

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Still mourning a Texas mass shooting, Democrat Beto O'Rourke gave his long-shot campaign a jolt by imploring a national audience that it was finally time for real action to curb the proliferation of high-powered guns in his home state and across America.

That was 2019, and the former congressman was running for president when he declared during a debate, “Hell, yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15,” weeks after a gunman targeting Mexican immigrants killed 23 people at a Wal-Mart in O'Rourke's native El Paso.

Last week, following the massacre of 19 elementary school students and two teachers by an 18-year-old man with an AR-15-style rifle in Uvalde, Texas, O'Rourke — now campaigning for governor — again briefly seized the national political spotlight. This time, that meant crashing the news conference of the man he wants to unseat, Republican Greg Abbott, and declaring — in a moment subsequently viewed widely online — that the carnage was "on you.”

O'Rourke is betting that the tragedy can reset the governor’s race in America’s largest red state — despite Abbott twice previously winning election by landslides and having begun the campaign with $55 million in the bank and despite gun culture looming larger in Texas than perhaps anywhere else.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/o-rourke-bets-shooting-will-shake-up-texas-governor-s-race/ar-AAXSojs

[peggysue2]

1. That will only happen if this massacre stays front and center

The horror that the shooting has generated, the grief, the anger. I guarantee, Abbott and his his crew are betting on the public's notorious amnesia, the tumble of events and headlines to lessen the blow, as well as disinformation and the continuous rumble of:

LIBERTY, FREEDUMB

Republicans don't give a shit about the safety of citizens, only their own political safety and the status quo.

Uvalde was not a singular event. Neither in Texas nor in the country. The outrage spikes, and then quiets until the whole wretched nightmare falls over the cliff of public consciousness.

This is a moral failing in an age where everyone and everything gets 15 minutes of fame. Want to talk about Replacement Theory? Each nightmare is replaced by another, the ongoing cycle of depraved indifference.

Abbott is counting on past patterns. If Beto can break that somehow, he'll have a shot to turn the election.

If not? Same old, same old.

[crickets]

2. "O'Rourke is betting..." Way to put words in his mouth, AP.

Way to second guess someone's motivations. There is no need to frame the article this way. There is no quote from Beto himself in the article save this one:

“To those men and women in positions of power who care more about your power than using that power to save the lives of those that you are supposed to serve .... we will defeat you and we will overcome you,” O'Rourke told protesters who chanted his name and the phrase "Vote them out!

Standing up to Abbott may help him in the governor's race. It may backfire on him. But he never has said and likely would not dream of being crass enough to say anything along the lines of "I'll bet this mass shooting helps my campaign, hyuck hyuck" anywhere, at any time, and certainly not while parents mourn and bury their children. Disgusting.

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[tavernier]

12. Exactly

That was intentionally meant to make Beto look like a calculating politician.

[blogslug]

3. The "bet" comes entirely from the mind of the author

Scroll down, down and down some more:

...O’Rourke’s campaign insists he's not using the massacre for political gain. It transformed its fundraising apparatus into one accepting donations for relatives of those killed in Uvalde, and says O'Rourke attended the Abbott news conference at the urging of one of the victims’ families...

[dalton99a]

5. +1. He is trying to help

Beto actually doesn't need a government job to feed his family

[crickets]

6. 👆 Thank you. nt

[UTUSN]

7. Thanks. You beat me to it. Was going to say: NOTE to MSN, Beto ain't the one saying that.

[Lovie777]

8. AP bullshit . ..

Beta intent was and still is genuine. Fuck these articles. Seems like most articles are anti-Democrats including the corporate media.

[JI7]

9. Beto doing what the media refuses to do with holding Republicans

accountable on gun violence so the media puts their disgusting spin on it.

[Sogo]

10. It SHOULD shake it up.

....in a blue tsunami kind of way....

[SYFROYH]

11. No doubt about it.

But i don't know if it will work on election day but it may get him more donations which he can use to spread his conolete message.

[SoCalDavidS]

13. I'm Still Against The Party Investing Money In TX

I feel like it could be better spent elsewhere, in states where we actually have more than a snowball's chance in hell of winning.