Beto O’Rourke isn’t really running for president anymore

Some people run for president to increase their public profile. This is the case for Representative Eric Swalwell (who has alrey dropped out), Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and a few others among the the remaining two dozen candidates. Others do it to raise funds at a national level for future races, such as Governor John Hickenlooper and Senator Amy Klobuchar. A few are running for a place in the cabinet should the eventual nominee win the White House, with the Vice President’s seat as a primary goal. Representative Tulsi Gabbard is the obvious choice for this category.

A few are actually running for president.

But one candidate isn’t running for any of these reasons. He’s running because he likes running for office. He craves attention and kudos. He enjoys speaking in front of people and is addicted to the camera. He is Beto O’Rourke, and he’s not running for president. He’s running for the sake of running, as the writing has been clearly written on the wall since a few weeks after he announced his candidacy that he no longer has a window of opportunity to get the nomination. Perhaps he did at one point, but that was months ago.

Today, Beto O’Rourke is a professional campaigner. He’s living the candidate’s life, jumping from spot to spot while trying to gather as much campaign money as possible to sustain him. Luckily for him, his fundraising efforts were very strong in the beginning before people realized he had no chance. He has plenty of money left to run a campaign for months.

And he will. He literally has nothing better to do, nothing he’d rather be doing than running for political office.

Other than wasting people’s time, there’s actually nothing wrong with what he’s doing, at least from an ethical perspective. He has a message and for the time-being he has a platform. I may oppose that message, but taking advantage of the spotlight he’s being given to promote what he believes in is righteous in and of itself. Of course, when we look at what he could be doing with this time, fame, and energy, it’s not as rosy to know he’s running a failed presidential campaign. He could be working towards solving any of the issues he’s busy complaining about on the campaign trail. He could be raising money for charity instead of his campaign. He could be helping the people in El Paso instead of talking about them from afar.

But until it starts getting awkward, he’s going to keep running for president. Until enough people step in and say, “Beto, it’s over,” he’s going to think there’s a chance. It might be one in a million, but at least it’s something.

Soon, it will be hard for Beto O’Rourke to get an interview on CNN, which adores him. He’s speaking ill of the President constantly, which is pretty much all he has going for him in their eyes. But his campaign is essentially over.

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