No, seriously, who does he think he is?

I know who he is, barely. He’s one of Congress’ lesser lights, which is saying something, and he’s known outside Texas mostly for losing to Ted Cruz right after Ted Cruz dropped all pretense of conservative dignity and groveled before Trump.

None of this qualifies him to govern, even if you think anything qualifies anyone to govern, which I don’t.

A quick trawl through Beto-related Wikipedia pages shows that he raised a lot of money while losing to Ted Cruz, so maybe he’s qualified to run. At least he’ll have a national campaign apparatus to lose with. The first entry in his page’s “Political views” section is “bipartisanship,” though, which doesn’t indicate that he has any political views of his own. (The rest of the section is basically the Democratic Party platform.)

I have also learned that he has an actual backstory — he once played bass in a rock band, and something about hacking. That Beto I would at least have listened to before dismissing. The current Beto is what you’d get if you asked Central Casting for a “bland politician,” no other details.

Actually, no, the vibe I get from Beto is stronger than that. Enough people seem to remember his music career to make it unlikely he was grown in a vat two years ago, like Josh Freeh in Transmetropolitan, but if you go back to his Wikipedia page and look at his official picture and his creepily vacant smile for a couple of minutes, you might find yourself half-believing it anyway.

If the lefties can’t come up with any better than that for 2020, then Trump is going to have to work at losing.