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OAKLAND — Pot stores, prisons and homeless encampments might not be typical presidential campaign stops.
But the unconventional agenda for Beto ORourkes California campaign swing this week shows how hes reinvented his long-shot presidential bid since the devastating mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso last month.
Instead of sticking to the tried-and-true presidential formula of Iowa diners and New Hampshire living rooms, the former Texas congressman is spending his time visiting marginalized communities far off the well-trodden campaign path — a risky strategy for a candidate whos struggled to make headway in the polls.
On Tuesday, as President Trump held fundraisers in Palo Alto and Beverly Hills, ORourke walked through Los Angeles Skid Row to talk to homeless people and advocates. On Wednesday, he met with inmates at San Quentin prison to discuss criminal justice reform. And on Thursday, the congressman bounded into an Oakland cannabis store co-owned by a man who once was arrested for selling weed just a few blocks away, highlighting ORourkes plan to end the War on Drugs.
“If ever there were a time to be with those whove been marginalized or counted out or down, it is now,” ORourke said, after a tour of the store and a meeting with local cannabis entrepreneurs. “To elevate them and lift their stories and share them with the rest of the country — thats what Im trying to do as a candidate, thats what I will do as president.”
ORourke entered the presidential race in March as a media sensation, buoyed by national attention on his close loss in the 2018 Texas Senate race. But he struggled to articulate a clear rationale for his White House bid. He seemed unprepared for the first two debates, and he was soon relegated to an afterthought among the top candidates.
After the mass shooting in ORourkes hometown of El Paso last month, though, his searing emotional responses brought him back into the spotlight. Since then, the former congressman has seemed to throw out the presidential playbook, turning his campaign into a national tour to highlight issues of social injustice. Its brought him to places such as the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and several Mississippi towns impacted by the largest workplace immigration raid in history.
“If I really want to understand the story of this country, if I really want to understand the solutions to the challenges that we face, Ive really got to listen to everyone… and not only go to those early primary states or those superdelegates who are going to vote at the Democratic convention,” ORourke said.
Other struggling hopefuls have taken the opposite tack. Kamala Harris campaign said Thursday that she would refocus on Iowa, stumping in the first caucus state every week in October and doubling her staff and offices on the ground. That comes as the California senators national poll numbers have sunk to their lowest level since she entered the race in January.
“Weve got to put Iowa first,” Harris communications director Lily Adams told reporters, arguing that a focus on the state has paid off for past Democratic candidates such as Barack Obama and John Kerry, who also were down in the polls a few months before the crucial caucus.
ORourkes campaign is hoping that his focus on progressive social issues and the authenticity he projects put him back in contention — even if the people hes meeting with, San Quentin inmates or undocumented immigrants in Mississippi, cant vote for him.
In some ways, Beto 2.0 comes off as the most woke presidential candidate in history.
As he introduced himself at the Oakland cannabis store, ORourke noted that “my pronouns are he/him.” Speaking outside of San Quentin, he acknowledged that the reason a past DUI arrest didnt derail his life had “a lot to do with my race” and his “privilege” as a white man. And he declared at the last debate that “we can mark the creation of this country not at the Fourth of July, 1776, but August 20, 1619” — the date when the first African slaves were brought to the British colonies.
Taina Vargas-Edmond, an activist with the Oakland criminal justice reform group Initiate Justice, said she liked that ORourke was taking a different tack from most politicians by meeting with inmates, homeless people and marijuana entrepreneurs.
“You cant address a problem if you dont talk to people whove been directly harmed by it,” she said. “Any candidate running for higher office should visit prisons and talk to folks incarcerated to learn their experiences firsthand.”
But theres no sign yet if ORourkes new strategy will win him more than progressive brownie points. Some of his recent rhetoric could be anathema to independent voters in swing states who could determine the general election — and to anxious Democrats who care more about beating Trump than about ideological purity.
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