{"id":1316531,"date":"2019-11-07T19:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/lightening-the-democratic-clown-car\/"},"modified":"2019-11-08T06:31:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T13:31:52","slug":"mulhall-column-lightening-the-democratic-clown-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/mulhall-column-lightening-the-democratic-clown-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulhall column: Lightening the Democratic clown car"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Mitch Mulhall<\/strong>
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If I had an Armolite Rifle, I might have heaved a sigh of relief last Friday when Beto O\u2019Rourke withdrew his bid for the Democrat presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

His departure culls the number of candidates vying for a chance to play the Democrat\u2019s Mitt Romney in the 2020 election down to some number under about 10.<\/p>\n

In truth, O\u2019Rourke never stood a chance. His political formula oversimplified: Embrace the most extreme stance on the most highly charged issue you can find and make it a cornerstone of your campaign platform. Maybe it keeps your name in some odd conversations, but in the end, not even those guys take you seriously.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke couldn\u2019t out-socialist Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, and he couldn\u2019t out-deep-state Joe Biden, so he tried to out-culture-war them all.<\/p>\n

To appear \u201cwoke\u201d on gun control, O\u2019Rourke embraced gun confiscation, and he may have actually helped the NRA by pulling back the curtain.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yes, we\u2019re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,\u201d He said. \u201c\u2026folks are saying, \u2018Look, I would give up that AR-15 or that AK-47. I don\u2019t need it to hunt, don\u2019t need it to defend myself in my home.\u2019 They recognize this is a weapon designed for war, to kill people as effectively, as efficiently, and in as great a number as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh yes, Democrats are coming for your guns. O\u2019Rourke just figured he had nothing to lose by being honest about it. After all, the next Democrat-controlled federal government will pass expanded background checks, probably with ease, and that\u2019s just for starters. Why equivocate?<\/p>\n

To appear \u201cwoke\u201d on gay rights, O\u2019Rourke endorsed removing the tax-exempt status of churches that don\u2019t recognize gay marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break, for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said. \u201cAnd so, as president, we\u2019re going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gay rights epitomize Democrat disdain for Christianity. Nowhere is this clearer than in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Again, O\u2019Rourke figured why not just tie the two together in a cage match and call it a campaign platform.<\/p>\n

So what can we learn from O-Rourke\u2019s withdrawal?<\/p>\n

For one, if you\u2019re a Democratic presidential candidate, there\u2019s really nothing to lose in being honest \u2014 unless you want the Democratic presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

Put another way, the more honest a Democratic candidate\u2019s platform, the less support she generates. Beto started the race with about fifteen percent support in national polls. Then he tacked hard, but honestly, left. He withdrew with less than five percent in the same polls.<\/p>\n

His Texas political career may have reached its sell-by, too. You don\u2019t step off of a national platform that features gun confiscation and church taxation as centerpieces and find solid political footing in Texas. At least not yet.<\/p>\n

No doubt some lone star Democrats will think Beto is just the guy to challenge for John Cornyn\u2019s Senate seat. After all, Beto gave Ted Cruz all he could handle. But that was before Beto\u2019s recent spate of cultural honesty.<\/p>\n

An O\u2019Rourke presidency would have micro-managed a Christian church\u2019s sermons from the hallways of D.C., blurring separation of church and state in a new, quintessentially Democratic way, and that more than anything may have forever changed the way a hefty hunk of voters see him, particularly in Texas.<\/p>\n

While running for a Texas senate seat in 2020 seems unlikely, don\u2019t take Beto\u2019s withdrawal as some kind of departure from presidential politics.<\/p>\n

Given enough time, his 2019 cultural honesty campaign will become a distant memory. My bet is he\u2019ll emerge again to run in 2024, and when he does he\u2019ll have re-tooled his platform into something even wackier.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitch Mulhall If I had an Armolite Rifle, I might have heaved a sigh of relief last Friday when Beto O\u2019Rourke withdrew his bid for the Democrat presidential nomination. His departure culls the number of candidates vying for a chance to play the Democrat\u2019s Mitt Romney in the 2020 election down to some number under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1316531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 03:14:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316536,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316531\/revisions\/1316536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}