Friday night, former Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke was forced to admit what most observers of his campaign have known for months: it was time to admit defeat and drop out of the race.
But while Beto-mania might have seemed fleeting for most election-watchers, who saw O’Rourke’s star fall amost immediately upon South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg — a similarly coiffed, but younger and more appealingly midwestern version of O’Rourke — entered the race, the news that Beto-mania had collapsed under its own sad weight was disappointing to the candidate’s dozens of hardcore supporters.
According to CNN’s Eric Bradner, O’Rourke’s own staff is treating O’Rourke’s failure the way Hillary Clinton treated hers: by failing to admit fault and blaming their campaign’s dramatic decline on everyone from the media to Donald Trump.
They’re being polite about it, but not shy: O’Rourke supporters are furious about media coverage of his candidacy. They think the mockery was over the top, lasted far too long and was punitive over him declining national TV interviews early on.
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) November 1, 2019
“They’re being polite about it, but not shy: O’Rourke supporters are furious about media coverage of his candidacy. They think the mockery was over the top, lasted far too long and was punitive over him declining national TV interviews early on,” Bradner tweeted as news of O’Rourke dropping out hit the airwaves. – READ MORE