The clown car continues to fill up as a new Democrat announces their presidential campaign seemingly every week. This time, it’s Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA), marking the third politician from Massachusetts to vie for the top spot. He joined Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and former Republican governor Bill Weld as hopefuls from The Bay State.

An Iraq War veteran from the U.S. Marines, Moulton led efforts to replace Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi once the Democrats won back control of the House last year. His politics are pretty much indistinguishable from other candidates as he favors Medicare-for-All, gun control, and other common leftist notions.

Moulton has a tall mountain to climb on the fundraising side if he hopes to make it to the main debate stage. There’s still time, but he’ll need to get some heavy attention very quickly to be able to make a serious run.

Twitter Response:

Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton enters 2020 presidential race

There is some excitement coming out of the Bronx because of an alleged “big money donor” with connections who wants to defeat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) so badly, he or she is willing to fork over tons of dollars and influence in a campaign to turn the deep blue district red. This won’t happen. It will be disastrous if they try.

The only thing that could possibly work for the GOP to upend the hyper-leftist radical progressive would be to find the ideal candidate and run a purely grassroots campaign against her. Otherwise, they’d only be playing to her strengths.

The only possible chance of defeating @AOC will NOT be a mega-donor driven GOP candidate. Bronx Republicans need to find a real candidate outside of politics, one the people can like and trust, and get them knocking on every door. #Grassroots https://t.co/N3WuEScs6m

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) April 21, 2019

If the GOP is serious about beating her, they need to forget the money angle. That’s not to say they don’t need money, but it needs to be money from within the district comprised of small donors who are targeted starting as soon as possible. They don’t need to appeal to the few Republicans in the district. They need to go after the independents and Democrats.

Their message must be simple, something to the effect of “The only candidate from the Bronx who is actually interested in the Bronx.” They have plenty of ammunition available to demonstrate how Ocasio-Cortez has her sights very clearly set on the national arena in which social media and battles with other Democrats is making her a nationwide star. They need someone who attends city council meetings, community meetings, and is 100% focused on the issues that concern the people of the Bronx instead of the grand ideas of Green New Deals and Medicare-for-All.

Then, they need a PAC that hammers away at the detrimental effects losing the Amazon deal has had on the Bronx. This is a gimme.

If their plans to go after AOC with money is the strategy that plays out, she’ll destroy them. It won’t be close. Every dollar spent will literally have the opposite effect. They can’t beat her with money. They need to hit doorbells.

Yes. Yes it is.

You won’t see any in mainstream media talking about it, not because they’re all trying to hide the reality (though some are) but because they probably haven’t noticed. This isn’t an analysis of what we’re seeing. The proof of Beto O’Rourke’s campaign demise can be seen in what’s absence.

Betomania isn’t taking hold as many (including me) predicted. He was actually getting more attention and interest from mainstream media before he officially announced his candidacy. Now, he’s struggling to get positive headlines. Even neutral stories, such as a pair of campaign aides leaving but still volunteering for the campaign, is being positioned in a negative light. The Hill’s headline was truthful and not spun, something they’re not known to do with headlines about candidates. Instead, it’s “Key aides leave O’Rourke’s campaign: report.”

Another story that’s making its rounds is his use of lobbyist campaign contributions. A favored candidate would get a plethora of headlines excusing this action with whataboutisms and claims of nothingburgers, bug so far, nothing. “O’Rourke faces question about acceptance of lobbyist money” is the type of headline we’re seeing.

In fact, we’re even seeing some negative opinion pieces coming from leftist publications. Radical progressive site Mother Jones didn’t take kindly to O’Rourke’s claims that his lack of charitable giving was due to him giving himself to the people.

So, where’s the Betomania we were promised? Some of it is being sucked away by a concerted effort underway by some progressive groups who really, really want a woman to be at the top of the ticket, and not Hillary Clinton. With Senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Kirsten Gillibrand all having favorable genders to some of these groups than someone like O’Rourke, the need to chop him down is important if they’re going to have a chance against the two old white guys, Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders.

But the primary reason Beto is flailing for attention is because so much of it is going to South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Like O’Rourke did with his 2018 Senate campaign, Buttigieg came out of nowhere to suddenly be rising in the polls and raising an unexpected amount of campaign funds. He’s also getting a sustained level of attention from the media as compared to O’Rourke’s hills and valleys.

Little by little, Buttigieg is getting attention from everyone on the left. He’s omnipresent in the media, which is very difficult considering the number and popularity of his competitors.

So far in April, he’s drawn many more searches on Google than O’Rourke. Most of this can be attributed to people simply not knowing who he is, but the consistency of his media dominance is worth noting.

Very few saw Scott Walker’s climb and sudden fall in 2015 during the early days of the GOP primary. He went from the frontrunner to pulling his name from contention seemingly overnight. Are we seeing the same with Beto O’Rourke?