{"id":178074,"date":"2019-03-14T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/14\/the-seinfeld-candidate\/"},"modified":"2019-03-14T18:26:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T23:26:00","slug":"the-seinfeld-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/14\/the-seinfeld-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seinfeld Candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am referring, of course, to the candidate about nothing, Beto O’Rourke who has just announced his candidacy for President<\/a>, and it appears that I am not the only one who notices that there is no “There” there:<\/p>\n

Beto O\u2019Rourke is finally ready to end the suspense. The former Texas congressman is expected to formally kick off his presidential campaign Thursday, one day after tipping his hand to a local TV station in Texas. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents,\u201d O\u2019Rourke told KTSM El Paso via text. \u201cIt\u2019s a big part of why I\u2019m running.\u201d His apparent confirmation came on the heels of a new Vanity Fair cover story<\/a>\u2014complete with glossy photo shoot\u2014in which he told the magazine that he wanted to run. \u201cI want to be in it,\u201d he said, after describing our current political moment as an existential fight. \u201cMan, I\u2019m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Beto is missing one important thing, though: an actual reason to run. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke would enter the race as a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. Those in the know tell the Atlantic<\/a> that Beto is planning to run as a candidate \u201coffering hope that America can be better than its current partisan and hate-filled politics, and that the country can come together,\u201d but that\u2014brace yourself\u2014he hasn\u2019t yet \u201clanded on how he\u2019ll propose to actually make that happen.\u201d That\u2019s more of the same empty words Beto\u2019s been offering in public since his loss to Cruz. \u201cI don\u2019t know where I am on a [political] spectrum, and I almost could care less,\u201d he said at a recent stop in Wisconsin<\/a>. \u201cI just want to get to better things for this country.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

Beto is missing one important thing, though: an actual reason to run. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke would enter the race as a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. Those in the know tell the Atlantic<\/a> that Beto is planning to run as a candidate \u201coffering hope that America can be better than its current partisan and hate-filled politics, and that the country can come together,\u201d but that\u2014brace yourself\u2014he hasn\u2019t yet \u201clanded on how he\u2019ll propose to actually make that happen.\u201d That\u2019s more of the same empty words Beto\u2019s been offering in public since his loss to Cruz. \u201cI don\u2019t know where I am on a [political] spectrum, and I almost could care less,\u201d he said at a recent stop in Wisconsin<\/a>. \u201cI just want to get to better things for this country.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He is a telegenic candidate about nothing who hopes that voters will project their own opinions on him, with the help of some meaningless, but soaring, rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.<\/p>\n

You’ve seen that T-shirt, the artist who did that logo was Shepard Fairey.<\/p>\n

Not interested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am referring, of course, to the candidate about nothing, Beto O’Rourke who has just announced his candidacy for President, and it appears that I am not the only one who notices that there is no “There” there: Beto O\u2019Rourke is finally ready to end the suspense. The former Texas congressman is expected to formally …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[504,405],"class_list":["post-178074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-philosophy","tag-presidential-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}