Beto Has Always Been a Progressive
I've been covering El Paso politics longer than just about anyone else in town in the legitimate media or the blogosphere.
I supported Bernie Sanders for president in the last primary.
I'm supporting Beto right now and I'm a little sick of seeing my former Bernie Bro brethren, disgraced former State Rep Norma Chavez, and some local folks try to re-brand Beto as some sort of Republican in Democratic clothing.
So since I happen to have a little institutional knowledge on the matter, let me remind you of a younger then-City Representative Beto O'Rourke when he was running for congress a few years ago against incumbent Silvestre Reyes.
Team Reyes was portraying Beto has too liberal for El Paso. Maybe some of you forgot about that, but they most certainly said he was too liberal.
Before that 2012 election cycle he advocated for domestic partner benefits to be expended to gay couples. Isn't it weird that just a few years ago that was such a controversial policy? Yeah, well Beto advocated for that policy.
He was advocating for immigration reform for years before.
During the campaign for congress in the 2012 primary, the subject of marriage equality came up. He advocated in favor of marriage equality LONG before it was considered cool to do so.
And he also, at a time when literally no one else locally was talking about it, advocated for the legalization of marijuana.
Hell, its 2019 and I don't know of a single local representative with the exception of Joe Moody that is even in the neighborhood of that conversation.
Don't believe me? Cool, I have video of a younger Beto O'Rourke and a younger Jaime Abeytia, sparring over legalization. As you can see in the video, I really challenged Beto on the issue. (Also, a completely irrelevant side by, but my editing skills have come a long way, man this video is ugly.)
These are progressive liberal policies that O'Rourke has been advocating for literally for years. He didn't just suddenly become a progressive liberal yesterday.
I can't stand to hear Bernie Bros who aren't from El Paso, or disgraced former State Reps who took a chingo of dinero from Republicans, act like Beto is some GOP Manchurian candidate.
Has he taken Republican money? Sure. So has nearly every other elected official in this town. If you understand the demographics of this town you know that Democrats hold every partisan elective office in the County. Republicans routinely donate to Democrats and people that consider themselves Republicans vote in Democratic primaries as well because they would rather have some voice in the outcome of those elections rather than no voice.
But that doesn't make Beto some sort of closet Republican.
Beto was advocating for progressive policy before most of you Bernie Bros were old enough to vote.
I supported Bernie Sanders for president in the last primary.
I'm supporting Beto right now and I'm a little sick of seeing my former Bernie Bro brethren, disgraced former State Rep Norma Chavez, and some local folks try to re-brand Beto as some sort of Republican in Democratic clothing.
So since I happen to have a little institutional knowledge on the matter, let me remind you of a younger then-City Representative Beto O'Rourke when he was running for congress a few years ago against incumbent Silvestre Reyes.
Team Reyes was portraying Beto has too liberal for El Paso. Maybe some of you forgot about that, but they most certainly said he was too liberal.
Before that 2012 election cycle he advocated for domestic partner benefits to be expended to gay couples. Isn't it weird that just a few years ago that was such a controversial policy? Yeah, well Beto advocated for that policy.
He was advocating for immigration reform for years before.
During the campaign for congress in the 2012 primary, the subject of marriage equality came up. He advocated in favor of marriage equality LONG before it was considered cool to do so.
And he also, at a time when literally no one else locally was talking about it, advocated for the legalization of marijuana.
Hell, its 2019 and I don't know of a single local representative with the exception of Joe Moody that is even in the neighborhood of that conversation.
Don't believe me? Cool, I have video of a younger Beto O'Rourke and a younger Jaime Abeytia, sparring over legalization. As you can see in the video, I really challenged Beto on the issue. (Also, a completely irrelevant side by, but my editing skills have come a long way, man this video is ugly.)
These are progressive liberal policies that O'Rourke has been advocating for literally for years. He didn't just suddenly become a progressive liberal yesterday.
I can't stand to hear Bernie Bros who aren't from El Paso, or disgraced former State Reps who took a chingo of dinero from Republicans, act like Beto is some GOP Manchurian candidate.
Has he taken Republican money? Sure. So has nearly every other elected official in this town. If you understand the demographics of this town you know that Democrats hold every partisan elective office in the County. Republicans routinely donate to Democrats and people that consider themselves Republicans vote in Democratic primaries as well because they would rather have some voice in the outcome of those elections rather than no voice.
But that doesn't make Beto some sort of closet Republican.
Beto was advocating for progressive policy before most of you Bernie Bros were old enough to vote.
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