Robert Francis Beto O’Rourke not an ethnic Mexican, yet that is his nombre

Down around Texas last year, one of the key political races involved that of Beto O’Rourke, a member of Congress from El Paso, trying to take down the politically unpopular Ted Cruz.

O'ROURKE: Could we have President Beto?

It didn’t happen. Cruz managed to narrowly win the election, with enough people deciding they’d rather have a Republican – even one as goofy and irrational as Ted.

WHICH MEANS THAT Beto O’Rourke may well have decided if he’s to have a political future, he’s going to have to work his way UP the political ladder – as in his announcement this week that he’s going to be one of the many political hopefuls seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

It also means we’re likely to get the spreading of the ultimate in “phony” issues in coming months.

We’re going to be told that O’Rourke is a fraud, trying to pass himself off as being of Mexican origins even though he isn’t.

His family has its background in Ireland and Wales, and were amongst the many white people to flood their way into Texas in hopes of finding a better life.

AS TO THE nickname of “Beto,” it’s a common one in Spanish. It’s short for Roberto, or Robert in English. Basically, “Beto” could translate into something like “Bobby.”

CRUZ: Could his '18 victory lead to Beto rise?

As for why the O’Rourkes would turn to Spanish when it came to their kid, it was because he was named for his grandfather. And it means they were influenced enough by the heavy-Spanish population of the border region in which they lived – and which O’Rourke grew up.

So is Beto O’Rourke trying to pull off some sort of fraud in trying to pass himself off as a Mexican-American? Not likely. Personally, I don’t think anybody would believe it if he tried – particularly since amongst the other presidential hopefuls in the running is one-time San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro – who also served as Housing and Urban Development secretary during the Barack Obama presidency.

CASTRO: A 'real' Mexican candidate

But I have no doubt we’re going to hear a lot of trash talk trying to take him down.

PERSONALLY, I SUSPECT that what really bothers these people is that someone would think to look to Spanish culture as something positive. Most likely, these people are amongst the outspoken minority of the Age of Trump that really wants him to succeed in erecting that border wall.

As though they want to put up as many barricades as possible to anything existing from Mexican-American culture.

Even though if one is completely honest, the Spanish conquistadores laid claim to parts of what is now United States decades before the English did. I’m actually working my way through a book, El Norte by Carrie Gibson, that attempts to document this very phenomenon.

But such stories and anecdotes just don’t fit into their vision. I’m sure they see someone like Beto O’Rourke as challenging their very definition of what is a “real” American.

I’M SURE THEY’RE more comfortable with the one-time governor of Louisiana, Piyush Jindal, who when his family came to the United States from India tried to take on a “more American” identity and he renamed himself “Bobby.

JINDAL: Ideologues ideal of a proper foreigner pol

Maybe they think Beto O’Rourke should be more like Bobby Jindal – even though one could argue that all O’Rourke is doing is trying to have a political life under the very identity that his parents gave him.

And one in which the voters of El Paso elected him to posts on the City Council AND the 16^th Texas congressional district.

Which is my way of saying I think anybody who tries to make an issue of this is really doing nothing more than showing us their own absurd hang-ups, The best thing we could do is disregard it, and judge the potential of a “President Beto” on his own merits.

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2020 starts already – Sanders does Chicago in campaigning for president

Bernie Sanders, the Congressman from Vermont who stirred the imaginations of certain people of the Democratic Party persuasion when he ran for president in 2016, kicked off his active campaigning for the party’s nomination in the 2020 election cycle.

SANDERS: Will it ever be Bernie's turn?

And in realizing that Chicago is a significant part of the process for any legitimate Democrat, he’s already been here – making an appearance Sunday night at Navy Pier hoping to stir up the passions of potential voters to take him more seriously than the other dozen-or-so people who have dreams of winning the White House.

ALTHOUGH IN MOST cases, it seems that what really motivates them is being able to have history record their names as the person who “took down” the presidency of Donald Trump.

Too many people are gambling on the fact that the majority that despises the notion of Trump will eagerly accept them as the replacement.

Creating the potential for infighting amongst Democrats that could very well put The Donald (or someone of his ilk, if all the rumors of Trump being willing to resign if he can avoid criminal prosecution are true) right back in the White House.

While I personally despise such a thought and see an overwhelming majority of people who’d like to Dump Trump, I can also see how political chaos could result in Democrats shooting down their own desires.

Do we want Hoosier (Buttigieg) or … 

I’M ALSO PONDERING the large number of Democrats who seem to think everybody else will get out of their way to let them be the one who takes on Trump.

It has far too much potential to create confusion that could cause many people to decide “the heck with it” and find something else to do on the Elections Day of 2020.

Think I’m kidding? Just look at the large number of candidates (14, who actually managed to make it on the ballot) for our recently-completed mayoral election.

We’re down to two now for the April 2 run-off, but there literally were 67 percent of people who cast votes who didn’t want either of the candidates who prevailed. Plus, there were 66 percent of registered voters who didn’t even bother to cast ballots.

… a Tejano (Castro) as nominee?

WHY DO I fear this could be the end result of the 2020 election cycle? A whole lot of people ultimately disappointed because they couldn’t get their act together and decide on a candidate most strong to defeat the Trumpster!

Particularly if it turns out that Sanders, who began his campaigning Saturday in his birthplace neighborhood in Brooklyn, then came to Chicago the next day to try to sway over our voter support, insists he thinks he’s entitled to the nomination.

Out of the belief that he put in his time in 2016, and it’s now his turn! When the reality may well be that 2016 was his turn and he lost to Hillary. Now maybe he should move aside and let more credible candidates make their pitch for voter support.

Now for those people who are thinking that it was establishment Democrats who somehow cheated Bernie of their support, I’d argue it was absurd to think they’d ever back someone who throughout his time in Congress has insisted on using the “Independent” label. Why should Dems be eager to back someone who doesn’t really want to be a part of the political party?

IF ANYTHING, I’D say the fact that Trump was able to so thoroughly undermine the Republican establishment in 2016 is more pathetic than anything that happened to the Hillary/Bernie brawl of that same year.

TRUMP: Could it be 'four more years'

It will be interesting the degree to which people want to re-fight the Bernie Sanders brawl of three years ago. Will they have a desire to move forward? Or get bogged down in the trash-talk that ultimately gave us “President Trump.”

Personally, I’m not sure who to think of supporting. The notion of the South Bend, Ind., mayor, Pete Buttigieg, and his revival of that city has some interest to me – although I also wonder if a mayor is just too low-ranking on the political experience totem pole to take seriously. Why not offer up Gary, Ind., mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson if we're looking for a Hoosier mayor? There’s also former San Antonio, Texas, mayor (and former HUD secretary Julian Castro); whose presence would probably most offend those Trumpites most motivated by their ethnic hang-ups.

Anyway, the process of “making up our mind” begins now. We’re going to have to figure out who we want and what is most important to us. Because if we don’t, it could easily be “four more years” of Donald Trump.

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Ted Cruz’ Iowa caucus “victory” not a boost for Latino political empowerment

There are those people trying to make something of the fact that a man of Latin American ethnic origins (Cuban, to be exact) came out the “winner” of the caucuses held this week in Iowa.

CRUZ: The Latino leader, for now

There also are those who find it intriguing that the two Cuban-American types who were in the field of candidates running for president finished first and third in the caucuses – with their combined level of support totaling 51 percent.

THINK ABOUT IT, if you will.

A majority of people choosing to identify with the Grand Old Party whose alleged front-runner was that nitwit New York real estate developer who started off his campaigning with a rant bad-mouthing Mexicans wound up having no problem picking someone from Latin America to be their party’s presidential nominee.

Of course, there’s also that 24 percent of Iowans who actually thought that Donald Trump was fit to be president. Then again, some people are just terminally silly, if not outright stupid. Particularly since Trump's response to losing the caucus was to demand a do-over -- as though he were some sort of third-world dictator.

Now I’ll be honest. I don’t expect Cruz to wind up as the Republican nominee for president when the GOP has its convention in Cleveland.

IF ANYTHING I think the same people who were willing to listen to Donald Trump’s nonsense talk about Mexicans and who live in other states will wind up thinking twice before following the lead of Iowans – who come from a place whose total Latino population is just under 6 percent (or about one-third the percent of the nation’s Latino population).

Cruz may well have experienced the highlight of his political career Monday night. It will never get better for the senator from Texas than this.

RUBIO: Putting Latinos into Iowa majority

As for the fact that his 28 percent support in Iowa and the 23 percent support garnered by the senator from Florida combines to a slight majority overall, that really is a political fluke.

I can’t help but want to respond to people bringing that “51 percent” figure up in a way similar to how Charlie Brown once responded to Lucy when she rattled off statistics about how bad their baseball team was.

“LUCY, TELL YOUR statistics to shut up!” Just as how I think the people spewing that stat are merely trying to divert attention from the fact their political party wants to use hostility toward Latinos to its benefit.

The fact is that even if Cruz or Marco Rubio were to somehow win the Republican nomination for president, the Democratic Party’s nominee would still take the bulk of the Latino vote come the November general election.

CLINTON: The REAL Latino voter preference

Both Cruz and Rubio have too many issues in their political records that make them appear to Latino voters to be politicians more interested in gaining white people voter support than anything else.

Let’s also be honest in acknowledging that both Cruz’ and Rubio’s ethnic origins are specifically to Cuba. Whose segment of the Latino population in the United States is dwarfed by those from Mexico or Puerto Rico.

IF REPUBLICANS REALLY think they’d take the Latino vote with either Rubio or Cruz (but Cruz in particular), they’ll learn pretty quickly how Mexican-Americans will dis them both as a couple of Caribbean-oriented fools too out-of-touch with REAL Latinos.

So the idea that 51 percent of Iowans participating in Republican caucuses found it in themselves to support a Cuban-American (which is what Cruz really is, despite all those fools who want to tag the label “Canadian!!!” on him) will find that they will be remembered in the political history books as some sort of aberration.

CASTRO: The ultimate Latino winner?

If there was a Latino political empowerment story to be found in this week’s caucuses, it may well be the efforts of Julian Castro – the one-time mayor of San Antonio, Texas, who has tossed out hints of wanting to be the vice-president and made an effort to campaign in Iowa on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

Her narrow victory puts him on the “right side” of the Democratic Party’s nomination process, and could put the name “Castro” closer to someday becoming U.S. president than either Cruz or Rubio will ever be – a thought that I’m sure appalls all who have ties to Cuba.

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