Presidential Politics in New Hampshire: Beto O'Rourke

Other than the fact that he nearly beat Ted Cruz in Texas and a lot of people I know and respect really like him, I didn't know what to expect. How will his Texas politics play on a national stage?

He was 20 minutes late, which didn't impress me. The meet-n-greet was held at Tuckerman's Brewery and people were buying beer and food. I dragged Danny with me since this will be his first primary and Presidential election and want him to meet the candidates and really listen to them, not just the sound-bites we are fed. I fed him a soft pretzel to keep him happy. I hadn't been to the brewery before. It has a good-sized space and they were packed in. He drew a much larger crowd than I was expecting for 3PM on a weekday. The brewery is a short walk from the middle school, and high school kids who don't drive could catch a bus after school to the middle school and walk here. There were a lot of young people here.

Beto started off introducing himself by talking about what he has done as a Congressman. He likened our natural areas in New Hampshire to the uphill battle he faced trying to get the Castner Range near El Paso designated a National Monument and how they fell short while Barack Obama was still President  with the cooperation of Republicans, he got it include in the National Defense Act that Trump signed, although he said Trump probably has no clue that it’s in there. His second example of bipartisanship where he worked with Republicans was the Veterans’ Mental Health Care Access Act that would have opened up mental health care options to all veterans.  He then opened up the floor to questions.

One of the first was on the high prison population.  He is for legalizing marijuana at the Federal level and expunging the records of anyone convicted of possession for that which will decrease the prison population and open up many opportunities for these non-violent offenders to be productive members of society.  He also talked about the opioid problem and about the fact that the justice system in this country has to apply to everyone – we shouldn’t be putting someone in jail for possessing a small amount of marijuana and giving a free pass to pharmaceutical companies and their executives who lied about their drugs creating dependencies.

One of the things he spoke about without being asked was a Constitutional Amendment to reverse Citizens United.  That’s something I have said we needed since the ruling first came down.  He also spoke about keeping politicians out of the room when redistricting comes up and restoring voting rights including same-day registration (we have that here in New Hampshire).

He spoke on the environment and backed it with science, that we have 12 years to make some pretty drastic changes and it’s probably going to hurt, but this was where he said he owed it to the young people and acknowledged all of the young people he saw in the audience.  He said the are the ones making a difference. When someone asked the question about getting millenials out to vote, he said they were already active, that gun control legislation recently passed by the House wouldn’t have gotten there if it wasn’t for the young people advocating for change. He said that an change that’s happened, from the Civil Rights Act on, has happened because young people were motivated to press for these changes.

Someone asked him about protecting his family from the onslaught of negativity they were going to experience during the campaign. He said he wants to rise above the negativity.  I do have to admit, he did not speak ill of anyone, even Trump, just alluded to the fact that our country is worse off for having him in office and no matter what happens in the primaries we must vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is over Trump. I agree – I’d vote for a potato over Trump.  Someone asked him how he planned to beat Joe Biden (who hasn’t officially declared yet). Beto spoke of how much service Biden has given to this country and said he hopes he does run.  Even with the number of people in the running right now, he said we always need more voices and ideas and we should welcome them.

In gun-friendly New Hampshire, he said he was for preventing the sale of military-grade weapons to civilians as well as universal background checks and got a round of applause. He came out in favor of Universal Health Care because we shouldn’t have people dying of diabetes and other treatable illnesses in the richest, most technically-advanced country in the world.

He posed for pictures afterwards and came down to me and Danny since I had my kneeling scooter. While at dinner, I asked Danny what he thought and he said “he sure did make a lot of promises.”  That was his interpretation of it. I think of it as ideas.  He has a lot of good ideas.  I remember when Barack Obama came through in 2007, one of the things he said that inspired me to vote for him in the primary over Hillary Clinton was that “Any politician can stand up here and make promises.  We can’t do any of it unless you send us people in Congress who feel the same way about these issues.”

Can Beto O’Rourke do it?  I can see him directing his Justice Department on the marijuana legalization and prosecution.  The rest of it is going to depend on what kind of Congress he’s dealing with. I could see voting for him, though, and not having to hold my nose doing it like I would with other candidates just to get Trump out.