I’m sure this will upset a number of readers, but facts are facts: Beto-mentum continues to build. A straw poll from the progressive group MoveOn.org released last week revealed Beto O’Rourke is the leading Democratic contender for the 2020 presidential race, with 15.6 percent of responders supporting his candidacy. He was followed by former Biden with 14.9 percent, Sanders with 13.1 percent, Harris with 10.0 percent and Warren with 6.4 percent (full list at the link). Actually, the leading vote-getter wasn’t Beto, it was “someone else/don’t know,” but with only 17.9%, so Beto has the Mystery Candidate in his sights.
There are 33 names on that MoveOn list, not counting “someone else,” so naturally some writers are worried that too many candidates will doom the party in 2020. He stops short, however, of telling Eric Garcetti it’s time to drop out.
Sometimes the right thing is done the wrong way for the wrong reasons. Many foreign-policy critics who thought we never should have gotten involved in Syria nevertheless think this was the wrong way to get uninvolved. That’s true even of Lucian Truscott IV, who has for years called for getting troops out of Syria and Afghanistan. Still, Truscott has some choice words for departing last-adult-in-the-room Jim Mattis and the foreign-policy establishment that perpetuates these long-running, far-flung military stalemates. You know who’s not allowed to pretend to be anti-war, though? Republicans, whose damp-pantsed hand-wringing about terrorism put American troops in these places to begin with.