THE TRAIN TO THE PRESIDENCY

In the days before the 2016 election, some big political bombs dropped on the Hillary Clinton campaign – Russians, Wikileaks, and Comey. But still most people and almost all pundits believed that her victory was inevitable. And why on earth was the Trump campaign wasting their time and resources on reliably blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin?

What a bunch of amateurs! Those states were so in the Democratic bag that even Hillary wasn’t bothering with them.

However, there were a few pundits, most notably filmmaker, Michael Moore and former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, who warned us that we should in fact worry about those battle fields where the Red Army was showing up and the Blue Army was not.

They warned us that Hillary had not been listening to angry blue-collar voters, who were losing the jobs, the security, and most of all the respect that had made the party of FDR their political home for generations.

The 2016 election came down to 77,744 votes in three states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

When the dust settled, Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.7 percentage points (44,292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), and Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes).

If Clinton had won all three states, she would have won the Electoral College 278 to 260.

She would have won those states if black voters had showed up in Obama numbers.

She would have won those states if so many white suburban women had not stayed home on election day or had not cast protest votes.

She would have won those states if white blue-collar voters who had voted for Obama had not felt so abandoned by the political establishment that they saw nothing to lose by voting for a wrecking ball.

In March of 2016, a tone-deaf Hillary Clinton, answered a question about her energy policy by saying, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Perhaps that was not the best way to win the support of those who had become losers in the new economy.

News reporters sat down and spoke with unemployed coal miners and their families, who were running low on money, hope, and dignity. Hillary tried but failed to undo the damage.

All Donald Trump needed to do was to declare himself their champion, promising to stop the “war on coal,” and bring back those jobs – as only he could. At every such opportunity, Donald Trump had an empty promise ready to go.

Michael Moore said this:

Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant, because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting. And it’s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for, the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.

By the time 2018 election campaigns came along, most 2016 wrong-way voters and stay-at-home voters realized that they had made a colossal mistake. On the campaign trail, Trump tried to sell caravan craziness, while Democrats pushed health care sanity. Republicans countered by trying to tell us that by dismantling Obamacare, they would make health care better than ever.

In congressional districts across the nation, the right Democratic candidates stepped forward – candidates, ranging from radically progressive to traditionally moderate, and right for their districts, and in essence said:

Do not listen to the Republican noise. They are desperate, out of ideas, and are owned by a narcissistic demagogue. They are peddling fear of immigrants and they are counting on you to buy it. But I know this district. I know the factories that are still closing, the middle-class jobs that are not coming back, the medical bills that are no longer covered.

And, the map flipped Blue in record numbers.

Now, the race for 2020 is underway, and it is possible that we will have as many as twenty-five or twenty-six contenders by the start of the debate season at the end of June. Many of you are worried that having too many contenders will result in handing the nomination to a candidate who will lose to Trump. I do not agree. I am happy to see so many quality job applicants, and I will be excited to see how each one of them performs on the debate stage.

At this point, I would not hazard a guess as to who the nominee will be, nor do I think there is a best fit for the times, based on race or gender. But I do think that the eventual winner will be the man or woman who genuinely understands the significance of this iconic story:

When FDR’s funeral train made its way along its route, greeted by large somber crowds, a man who was noticeably sobbing was asked:

Did you know the president?                                                                             

The sobbing man replied:

No, I didn’t know him, but he knew me.

        

I predict that after our ordeal of surviving Trump, the next President of the United States will be someone who knows that the coal miner is us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

MUELLERS HERE, MUELLERS THERE, MUELLERS, MUELLERS EVERYWHERE!

Remember when your ex-friend told you that Donald Trump was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers? If you thought Trump was unintelligent, it was because you were failing to see his long game.

There certainly are chess players in this surreal drama where we now live, but none of them are named Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin is playing chess. Kim Jong-un is playing chess, and thankfully, Robert Mueller has been playing chess from the moment he was appointed special counsel.

Remember when we were afraid Donald Trump would fire Robert Mueller? Or that he would order Rod Rosenstein to do the dirty job? Remember when he tried so hard to discredit the Mueller team by branding them as 17 angry Democrats, even though most are registered Republicans?

It seems like ages ago that Matthew Whitaker would either fire Mueller or clip his wings by defunding the investigation or limiting its scope. It seems like years ago that William Barr would stop the investigation in its tracks by declaring it out of bounds the very moment he was sworn in as attorney general.

But that was yesterday, and this plot never pauses long enough for the audience to take a breath.

To his small credit, Donald Trump has always been afraid of Robert Mueller, but this is not fear based on deductive reasoning. In his heart, Donald Trump knows that he is incapable of comprehending the use of strategy. He is intellectually limited to instinctive moves. He knows to fear Mueller like a cocky hyena knows to fear a relentless lion, sensing that he is being stalked by a superior predator.

He smells it. And now, he shows it. We can see it in his eyes and hear it in his devolving speech.

Mueller did what Trump would never be able to imagine, because it does not exist in Trump’s universe. Mueller made himself dispensable. He did this by making more Muellers.

In a simultaneous chess exhibition, a superior chess player, or grandmaster, will play as many as 40 or 50 opponents at one time, by moving from one chess board to the next after making a move.

Now imagine that instead of a grandmaster, the lone player is one who cannot think beyond the immediate present. And imagine that his opponents are sharing information amongst themselves to help them prepare for their next moves.

At one table sits the Southern District of New York, nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York because of their reputation of independence, relentlessness, and track record in taking down high-profile criminals.

Sharing the next table are the Attorney General for the State of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney. A presidential pardon works for federal crimes, but not for state crimes. Do you think that career white collar criminals like Donald Trump and Paul Manafort cheat on their federal tax returns but not on their state tax returns? Is it likely that the Trump Organization and the Trump family meticulously operated within state and local laws? Look no further than to the Trump Foundation and Trump University for the answer to that question.

Now, as Michael Cohen and the future witnesses named by Cohen, lead to more House investigations by more U.S. attorneys, more attorneys general, and more district attorneys who will take their places in the most important chess tournament that has ever taken place – important legally, politically, and morally.

And what are the stakes?

Well, let’s start with the future of the Trump presidency, the survival of the Trump business empire, the freedom of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. When lawbreaking is allowed to become your privileged routine, you don’t do less of it. In fact, you stop giving it a second thought.

What is giving them a second thought are those sealed indictments that await Mueller’s decision to unseal them – at the time of his choosing. They are all part of Mueller’s unrevealed long game.

Donald Trump is feeling his powerlessness. His rambling two-hour speech at CPAC smelled of desperation. His failures on the world stage have shattered his “Only I can fix it.” myth, just when he needed it the most.

Publicly referring to Apple’s Tim Cook as Tim Apple is just another poetic reminder that the man who went to such great lengths to conceal his grades and S.A.T. scores is as ill prepared to handle the escalating chess attacks as he was to assume the lofty position that he never really wanted.

Just think! Instead of taking second prize, he could have had Trump Tower Moscow. As the man himself would say, Sad! Very SAD!

OPERATION GODZILLA

Donald Trump knows how to play offense, and he is good at it. He learned early-on that if he fought dirty, and never let up, and ignored all of the rules, others would step back and let him have his way. If they didn’t, he would sue them.

The heart of the Trump offense is not strategy. The man who famously does not read is not a student of George Washington, or Ulysses Grant, or Ike, who at war was the hero of D-Day and at peace, mobilized the wheels and gears of government to revolutionize our infrastructure by creating the interstate highway system.

The heart of the Trump offense is simple. It is loudness – overwhelming and unrelenting loudness, battle tested to drown out the voices of perceived adversaries. Up against non-stop loudness, the reasonable and the rational have wound up battered and bloodied.

And that might explain why so many of my fellow anti-Trumpers are noticeably lacking in optimism, in spite of the great Blue Wave that placed the people’s House in the hands of the Democrats. The Mueller investigation, though richly productive, continues to be quiet – too quiet if you have been nervously biting your nails, waiting for the big takedown.

Now, Democrats are running the committees, and they too have been nerve-rattling quiet and way too reasonable and rational to give hope to many that are waiting and praying for a Democracy-loving King Kong to arrive on the scene and save us from the godless Godzilla.

To those of you looking for Kong, please believe me:

The game has changed.

Six Democrats, possessing different styles, different skills and different super powers – brand new super powers – will soon have him cornered, and we will begin watching him take the blows in real time. Finally, he will have to play defense like his presidency and the future of his adult children depend on it.

A foreign government is not supposed to help elect a president of the United States, but Russia did exactly that. Devin Nunez, the now former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, did back flips to convince us that our real enemies were our own intelligence agencies, and that these deep state, Obama agents were out to frame the innocent POTUS.

Nunez made sure that witnesses, called before his committee, were handled gently. In fact, witnesses called before all House committees were handled gently, if they were called at all. For Devin Nunez and his committee counterparts, protecting America was replaced with protecting Trump. This heist took place, while the one man who could have stopped it, Paul Ryan, stood silently and impotently at the door.

Now Paul Ryan is out and Madam Speaker is in.

His speakership will be defined by his feeble excuses for not using his voice.

She, on the other hand, took the gavel, not simply as a person who fought for her job and was clever and savvy enough to win it, but as one filled with the belief of her appointment with destiny.

Devin Nunez is out and Adam Schiff is in.

While Nunez publicly trashed the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Constitution, Schiff, the ranking member, could only watch the charade and call it out in the press. Setting the record straight earned him the Trump tweet-name, Little Adam Schitt.

Now, Little Adam Schitt is chairman, and real investigations are about to begin. New witnesses will be called. Old witnesses will be recalled. Subpoenas will be issued. The story of: What did the president know about Russia and when did he know it? is about to unfold before our eyes.

And there will be more – a lot more.

Ranking members, Jerry Nadler on the Judiciary Committee, Richard Neal on Ways and Means, and Maxine Waters on Financial Services could only watch the Republican charade and call it out. Soon they will start calling witnesses. Corrupt cabinet members, abandonment of Puerto Rico, immigration, family separation, money laundering, campaign violations, possible criminal behavior by Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jared, and the pursuit of Trump’s tax returns will all be getting a long awaited dose of daylight.

And, that first sustained blast of daylight will take place on February 7th, when Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, grants former Trump fixer, Michael Cohen the opportunity to come clean, as all of us watch. Michael Cohen is on his way to a three-year prison term. He branded himself as Trump’s go-to hatchet man, once boasting “I would do anything to protect Mr. Trump.” He would like to change both his prison sentence and his public image.

In fact, he hopes that loudly serving the crime boss’s head on a platter will make him the hero of this story. Grateful though we may be, history will not be so kind, regardless of the secrets he might reveal.

The real heroes, like Mueller, will be strategic, focused, and unflappable.

For Adam Schiff, Richard Neal, Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, and Elijah Cummings, the tone has been set and probably much of their agendas. They will go after the truth, while being goaded by committee Republicans (like the rabid Jim Jordan) to lose their tempers, to appear overzealous and vindictive, but they are unlikely to take the bait.

And Godzilla will do everything he can think of to drown them out, to stomp on them and their hearings.

But they have been preparing for their moment for what must seem like an eternity, and they understand that history is watching.

Of course, nobody understands that more than Madam Speaker, who wields a very big gavel and is not afraid to use it.

THE REPUBLICAN MARCH TOWARD EXTINCTION

2045 will be a landmark year, because if current population trends continue, that will most likely be the year the United States becomes a majority-minority country. To spell that out, if you are on the planet in 2045 and you happen to be a non-Hispanic white American, you will no longer be in the majority.

And just to rub it in for those who proudly wear a MAGA cap and for whom tear gas at the border brings tears of joy, 2015 marked the year that racial-ethnic minority babies in the U.S. officially outnumbered white babies.

Donald Trump can stop a caravan, but he can’t stop reality. Of course, he can lie about reality, which is just fine for the roughly one-third of our fellow citizens who have taken up residence in Donald Trump’s alternative universe.

The MAGA in your life will tell you that immigrants, which in this case does not mean Norwegians who have overstayed their visas, but rather those dangerous brown people from poop-hole countries, who come here specifically to bring crime and disease, are the number one problem facing each and every one of us.

I know a few of you who have placed your faith in Donald Trump. I know many more of you through your posts and comments on social media. I hear your anger.

You happen to live in one of the many cities, towns, or neighborhoods across the country that has already shifted from white majority to white minority, leaving you surrounded by others, who speak English with odd accents, or speak languages that are not American, or attend services of a dangerous religion, and these non-white invaders now live in homes where the friends from your childhood once lived. I get it. I do.

You used to ask yourself: How did this happen?

Now you tell yourself and anyone who will listen: This country is being taken from us!

So, when Donald J. Trump arrived on the presidential scene, after he had already convinced you that the first Black President was actually born in Kenya, thereby making him an illegitimate POTUS, there was no question about it. Trump was your candidate.

And when he came back to you in 2016 and told you to support his war to save the real America, you absolutely had go to the polls, and you absolutely had to vote against every open border, soft on crime, caravan loving Democrat on the ballot.

You answered the call. Of course you did! You voted Republican.

As the exit polls told us, 75% of Republicans believed that the number one issue facing the country was Immigration.  Fox News told them that the caravan of invaders was within striking distance. There were Middle Easterners and tough hombres hiding amongst the innocent looking families and they were carrying diseases like small pox. Troops had been sent. Barbed wire was being strung. Tear gas had been fired. This was a national emergency!

But angry Hillary-loving, Trump-hating Democrats just didn’t get it. 75% of them believed that Health Care was the most serious issue facing the country.

Propaganda won Republicans, but would it win the midterms?

Democrats won back the U.S House of Representatives with a 40 seat advantage, flipped 7 governorships, 6 state legislative chambers, and over 300 House and Senate seats.

Not only did Donald Trump’s phony caravan politics lose the midterm elections by a landslide, but it may well have lost the future for what has become a party of cowardice, hypocrisy, and unconscionable opportunism.

How is the party of Old White Men, currently owned and operated by Trump, going to survive until 2045 when the midterm exit polls tell us that 76% of non-Hispanic white voters voted Democratic and only 22% voted Republican?

How is the party selling fear of the future going to stay in business when their most important potential customers – young voters – are not buying the necessity of putting children in cages?

67% of voters age 18 to 29 (aka: the future) voted Democratic while 32% voted Republican. And, if we add early-middle agers to that group, we see that voters age 18 to 44 broke for Democrats 61% to 36%.

Donald Trump was never really a Republican. He was just a loud mouth celebrity, who mainlined notoriety. Even he was probably shocked at how easily the Grand Old Party turned over the keys to the car. With their permission, he has taken the nation on a terrifying joy ride.

  

However it ends, they are as guilty as he is, and they should never be forgiven. Just going out of business is not punishment enough.

Until it ends, I will continue to survive Trump two minutes at a time.

THE MIDTERMS: DID HEALTH CARE ANXIETY TRUMP CARAVAN CRAZINESS?

The 2018 midterm elections are now history (except for results yet to come in), and the exit polls tell quite a story.

Actually, they tell many stories, so you may want to examine the results for yourself and pick the ones that mean the most to you. I will tell you what resonates most with me.

Voters were asked: What is the most important issue facing the country?

For months, the opinion polls had been telling us that the answer would be Health Care. And it was.

41% of voters answered: Health Care, making that the number one issue, by a wide margin. Democratic candidates had already figured that out from hearing the fear and rage coming from those lost in the cracks of a badly broken system.

In the United States of America, 62% of bankruptcy filings are due to medical bills. Health Care anxiety has become a middle class disease. Quite simply, you might have to lose your house to pay for your child’s cancer treatment.

Meanwhile, Republicans have worked tirelessly to repeal Obamacare, shrink Medicaid, undermine the health exchanges, and return to insurance companies the right to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of non-elderly Americans with some kind of pre-existing condition may total 130 million. That number alone just might translate to an awful lot of high anxiety health care voters.

As the midterms grew closer, Republican candidates realized that they would likely pay a steep price by being on the losing side of this issue. So they shrewdly put together a two-pronged strategy to save the House, increase their numbers in the Senate, and save their governorships.

First, they would proudly present themselves as the true champions of Health Care, especially when it came to protecting pre-existing conditions. Not hard to do! It just required using alternative facts in the context of an alternative Trump-Fox News reality.

The second prong of the midterm strategy would be to go full-Trump and scare voters into believing that nothing would endanger life and liberty more than lax border control, and for that, the caravan presented them with the opportunity of a lifetime.

Without stopping the caravan at the border, MS-13, ISIS, a loose collection of bad hombres, and of course people carrying diseases, including smallpox, would be spreading through America, raping, murdering, dropping babies, collecting benefits, and illegally voting Democratic.

So, did the Republican strategy work?

On some level, did genuine Health Care anxiety trump manufactured caravan craziness?

Well, of the 41% of voters who told exit pollsters that Health Care was their number one issue, 75% were Democrats and 23% were Republicans.

And, would you care to guess which issue finished second to Health Care, as the most important issue facing the country? 23% of voters answered: Immigration.

That party breakdown was the exact opposite of the Health Care answer. 75% were Republicans and 23% were Democrats. Of course, for some of those “Immigration” Democrats, the threat of deporting a family member would likely outweigh even severe Health Care anxiety.

I guess you could say that the Republican strategy worked on Republican voters.

Republicans made a good short term bet, but a bad long term bet when they first vowed to repeal and replace “every word of Obamacare.” Remember when Ted Cruz was willing to shut down the government to stop Obamacare from becoming law?

He warned his Tea Party friends that by getting subsidized health insurance, Americans would become “addicted to the sugar.” But that was back in 2013, when Ted had job security. He had no idea that one day he would get battered by a guy named Beto, running around deep red Texas, championing health care for all.

Texas will never be the same, and neither will Ted.

Besides electing leaders and policies, elections tell us a lot about who we are as a nation. Sometimes those answers are perplexing, but sometimes they are loud and clear.

The 2018 midterms delivered a big blue wave, but they also provided some answers as to what we have become in the last two years. 

The exit polls have a lot more to tell us, but I am at the end of my two minutes.

THE BRILLIANCE OF BETO IS BEAUTIFULLY BASIC

Though I am an eternal optimist, not just on this blog, but in everyday life, I confess that the past weeks of Trump-inspired domestic terrorism, and sad aftermath, left me needing a strong pick-me-up.

So I reached for my laptop and took a strong dose of Beto O’Rourke.

Warning! First-time watchers of Beto rallies have reported experiencing a sudden jolt of Beto-mania. It is powerful stuff.

I start watching the video. Beto takes the stage like a rock star. The Charisma Kid needs no warm-up. He is at full gallop, and so is the audience. They are with him, stride for stride, standing, cheering, and screaming. Halfway through, I go back to the beginning of the video and start transcribing. I want to be able to see the naked words.

Hello San Antonio, how are you? 

(THUNDEROUS CHEERS) 

I feel the same way. I feel a lot better than I sound or than I look at this moment. In fact, I feel like you sound right now. I’m pumped up. I’m thrilled. I’m excited. I’ve got more energy, though I’ve had less sleep than at any other time in my life, because you all are making something absolutely extraordinary happen right now.

Now we learned that here in San Antonio, in Bexar County, yesterday, we surpassed the midterm first time early voting totals for all time here. And then, today we beat yesterday’s numbers in San Antonio.

So, with your help, tomorrow, if you want to help beat today’s numbers, yeah! We’re counting on each other at this time. It’s all of us in this together, meeting the urgency of this moment with the power and joy of people -- no PACS, no special interests, no corporations, all people, every day, in every single county, in the state of Texas.

BETO SPEAKS TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THOSE WHO OPPOSE HIS POSITIONS. THE RESPECT AND HUMILITY HE SHOWS TO THE OPPOSITION CAN BE SERIOUSLY DISARMING.

Listen, not only are we running this the right way, going to every one of the 254 counties of Texas, working for, listening to, seeking to understand, represent, fight for and serve all of us, regardless of your party affiliation. If you’re a Republican and you’re here, you’re in the right place. If you’re a Democrat and you’re here, you’re in the right place too.

Everyone welcome! The small differences – party, geography, who you love, who you pray to, how many generations you can count yourself an American, or whether you just got here this morning – all that matters is that we are all here together. Am I right?

TEXAS IS SUCH A HEALTH CARE MESS THAT THERE IS NO PLACE TO GO BUT UP. SO, BETO ASKS: WHO BETTER THAN TEXAS TO LEAD THE WAY ON GUARANTEED HEALTH CARE FOR ALL?

We’re going to do this for everyone. And we’re not only going to run it in the right way, we’re going to win this in the right way, so that we set ourselves up to deliver on the very high expectations that we have set for and by one another, like this, going from the least insured state in the United States of America where the number one provider of mental health care services is the county jail system, where people with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder get arrested on purpose, to get locked up so they get taken care of – fed, clothed, prescribed the psychotropic medications that they literally need to stay alive.

A state that sees us lose people to diabetes and the flu, though we are the wealthiest, most powerful country on the face of the planet. We understand the consequences of failing to be there by and for one another perhaps better than any other people in any other state and that is why we are going to lead the way on guaranteed high quality universal health care for every child, every woman, every man, in every single way -- primary health care, specialty health care, mental health care.

IN TEXAS, WOMENS’ HEALTH IS STUCK IN THE DARK AGES.

And for a state that is at the epicenter for a maternal mortality crisis, three times as deadly for women of color, a state that has shut down so many of its family planning clinics, we’ve made it too hard for too many to get that cervical cancer provider that family planning  provides, to see a provider of any kind that we’re losing them here faster than perhaps any place in the developing world.

We also say that universal health care means that every woman makes her own decisions about her own body and has access to the health care that insures that she can.

IN THIS DEEP RED BORDER STATE, BETO GOES BEYOND DEFENDING IMMIGRATION. HE CHAMPIONS IMMIGRATION.

This state, this beautiful, bold and ambitious state, defined in part by the immigrants who have chosen us, those who have left their homes, their families, sometimes their comfort, their language, their culture to start anew as strangers here, in a strange land, trying to do better here for themselves, their families, but also doing better for this country that they were called to and inspired by, their very presence making us stronger and safer and more successful, and yes, more secure.

BETO MAKES IT CLEAR. FAMILY SEPARATION IS A HUMAN TRAGEDY AND A MORAL CRIME. TEXANS MUST DEMAND AN END TO IT.

Those of us in this defining border state who bore witness to kids who, if they were lucky, arrived here with their parents, fleeing some of the deadliest places on the planet, bar none, what would it take for you to travel two thousand miles, spend three weeks on the road with your baby girl, your infant child to try to come here, this land of refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants and instead of finding asylum, or refuge, or safety, you encountered your worst nightmare -- that kid literally taken from you at your most vulnerable and desperate moment, torn from your arms, prosecuted like a common criminal for doing what any human being would do in the same situation.

That child today might be in a foster care home in Michigan or Ohio, or God only knows where. That mom, back in El Salvador, not knowing when, or even if she will see that child, for whom she risked her life. This state, we all together, regardless of party can rise up and insist that never again can another child be taken from a parent coming to this country, and we will reunite all those kids right now, get them back with their families.

WHO ARE THE DREAMERS? THE DREAMERS ARE US.

And we take the next step, defining ourselves, not by what we are against, but what we are for, rewriting our immigration laws in our own image, defined by our experiences, what we know to be true, our values and our interests, beginning with freeing every dreamer from any fear of deportation by making them U.S citizens here in their home country.

DAMN IT TEXAS, START RESPECTING YOUR TEACHERS!

For those school teachers and public educators here, out in the community, many of them, too many of them, nearly half of them working a second or a third job just to make ends meet because they do not earn enough teaching our kids in that classroom. I want to make sure that we’ve got those teachers’ backs, that we pay them a living wage so that they just have one job, the most important job, connecting with that child, unlocking that lifelong love of learning and not being forced to teach to a high stakes, high pressure test that in no meaningful way measures that teacher’s performance or that child’s potential.

THE WAR ON DRUGS HAS BACKFIRED, ESPECIALLY ON THE YOUNG, MINORITIES, AND VETERANS.

We can lead in this state on the issue of criminal justice reform, acknowledge that a war on drugs has become a war on people. We can end the prohibition on marijuana and we can expunge the arrest record of everyone arrested for a substance that is legal or decriminalized or medicinalized in most of the rest of the country. Make sure that not another veteran has to be an outlaw in the eyes of the law for wanting to take medicinal cannabis instead of an opioid, make sure that not another young person, and if we’re honest with ourselves about who we are locking up right now, not another young person of color is behind bars for something that’s perfectly legal in most of the country. Not another young person, when released, will have to check a box on an employment application form, saying that they have a conviction, meaning that they will not get that job. Not another young person denied a Pell Grant because of one decision that they made in their lives, freeing everyone to live to their full potential to be who they’re supposed to be, to contribute to their maximum capacity. I know that we can lead on this.

TEXAS IS TERRIBLE ON CIVIL RIGHTS, SO WHO BETTER THAN TEXAS TO LEAD THE NATION ON CIVIL RIGHTS? BETO SEES FAILURE AS OPPORTUNITY. ALWAYS!

You give me the challenge. We are up to it. In a state that has seriously debated that proposition that we are going to try to scare parents, freak you out about transgender kids coming into your child’s bathroom, though we know that transgender kids are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrator of an attack in any schools. This state where it is perfectly legal, although not in my measure, not at all okay to fire someone based on their sexual orientation, in a state where there are thirty thousand kids in the foster care system because they needed a loving home but in this state apparently, you can be too gay to be able to adopt one of those kids right now.

What if that was the same state through this election that decided that we would stand up for every single one of us and the full civil rights of every single American, regardless of their differences? We can do that as well.

BEING HIT REALLY HARD BY CLIMATE CHANGE HAS PREPARED TEXAS TO LEAD THE NATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. A MORAL OBLIGATION.

Climate change, we got you on that one. No one understands the shift better than the people of Texas. We’ve lived it. We’ve experienced it. We know the clock is ticking and we have precious little time to get it right and damn the next election or polls. I’m talking about the next generation and every generation to follow. They’re counting us, the people of 2018, sending this message to the people of the future, our kids, our grandkids, the generations yet to come. They want to know that while we still have a chance to get this right, that we did this, that every tough political decision that we decided that we would come together, that we would transcend the pettiness, the partisanship, the bitterness, the smallness of this moment and offer our courage, our strength, our big bold beautiful heart that could only come from the state of Texas.

And what you have shown just over the first two days of early voting, is that the hope we feel, that you have given me, the inspiration that you have provided, the investment that you made into this campaign and into the future of this country, you have turned it into action by voting at the early voting locations.

BETO WANTS EVERY LAST OUNCE OF YOU. HE CAN ASK FOR THAT BECAUSE HE IS GIVING EVERY LAST OUNCE OF HIMSELF.

And let me tell you this: if like me, you want to make sure that you have done everything that you can, spared no expense or effort to make sure that you deliver at this defining moment of truth, when we decide this on the sixth of November, you do not want to wake up on the seventh, wondering what more you could have done, given the stakes, given everything that is on the line for this country.

Please make sure that your conscience is clear that you have done everything, knocked on every door, made every phone call, reached out to every friend and family member, classmate and colleague and invited them into the election of our lifetime. If you’re like me, on the seventh of November, the day after this is decided, you want to wake up with a glorious hangover, celebrating the victory of our lifetimes for this state, for this country, for this generation, for every generation that follows.

Are you with me?

Are you with me?

I am with YOU, San Antonio!

(The crowd screams BETO! BETO! BETO!)

WILL GILLUM KILL 'EM WITH COURAGE, COMPASSION, AND COMMON SENSE?

If there is one single contest on November 6 (with the possible exception of the Texas Senate race) that might restore our faith in the heart, soul, and brains of the American electorate it could be the Florida governor’s race.

Florida primary voters could not have made this contest any more dramatic if they had all gotten together and hired a Hollywood script writer.

The Republican, Ron DeSantis made it clear that if you are a Florida voter and you are energized by “Build that wall!” and “Lock her up!” rallying cries, you have found your man. Anyone looking for daylight between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump was wasting their time.

And just to put the icing on the cake, he made it clear that his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum is a danger to the people of Florida. If (God forbid!) he ever got elected governor, he would likely “monkey this up.”

He said he was not being racially offensive. He was simply pointing out that a Governor Gillum’s far-out, radical, progressive, socialist policies would “turn Florida into Venezuela.” That was not meant as a compliment. Oil-rich Venezuela proved that even wealthy nations, like some wealthy individuals, can find a way to become destitute.

A current Republican television ad portrays Andrew Gillum as being on another planet. Ground control can’t make contact with him because he is so far out with his positions on Medicare for All, sensible gun laws, raising the state corporate tax rate to pay for better public education and higher salaries for teachers, and a $15 per hour minimum wage.

Conventional wisdom says: Do not embrace these way too risky non-mainstream positions. If a Democrat is going to win over Independents, he needs to be careful not to scare them away with radical ideas and, If there is any state that loves guns and hates taxes it’s Florida.

So Gillum is nuts. Case closed. The voters will send him back to Planet Crazy and DeSantis will stroll into the governor’s office, wearing a red cap that reads: “KEEP FLORIDA JUST THE WAY IT IS.”

Well, not so fast! Let’s add some context. Donald Trump will be on every ballot in every district and in every state, especially Florida where a vote for Ron DeSantis is a vote for Donald Trump.

According to the latest national opinion polls, Donald Trump is on a roll, but it is not a good roll for him or for any Republican candidate clinging to his coat tails. His approval ratings that were always in the 40s are now mostly in the 30s.

In the most recent CNN poll, the president’s approval ratings dropped from 42% in August to 36% in early September. You might say he had a rough few weeks. It is now clear that his base is shrinking just in time for the November midterms.

Another poll number might be especially predictive of the outcome of a number of those midterm contests. The president’s approval rating among Independents has plunged from 47% to 31%, just since August.

The political earth is shifting beneath our feet. Democrats will take back the House. Taking the Senate is still a long shot, but the fact that so many Senate races, once solidly in the bag for Republicans, are now real contests, makes us wonder how many disillusioned Trump voters are quietly jumping off the MAGA wagon.

And remember, while Floridians have tended to vote for Republican governors and legislators, they voted twice for Barak Obama. Maybe the foolishly bold Andrew Gillum is on another planet, but it might be the same planet where Barak Obama came from to steal the nomination from Hillary Clinton and go on to defeat John McCain in 2008, and then Mitt Romney in 2012.

Republican Governor, Rick Scott and the state Republican leadership rejected Medicaid expansion. They had to. Accepting it might have been counted as a win for Socialist, Barak Obama.

Andrew Gillum thinks that it just makes sense for all Floridians to have adequate health insurance. Recent polls tell us that 70% of Americans now support Medicare for All – that would be 84% of Democrats and a surprising 51% of Republicans.

Does Ron DeSantis believe that all uninsured or underinsured Floridians are Democrats? Andrew Gillum is betting that some Independents and Republicans who are adequately insured actually give a damn about their less fortunate neighbors – you know, those compassionate Conservatives.

Andrew Gillum thinks that Florida is ready for common sense gun laws. Ron DeSantis boasts of his A-rating from the NRA. Does it matter to him that 70% of NRA members and 78% non-NRA gun owners are now in favor of comprehensive background checks? Or that 70% of all Americans believe in stricter laws for assault weapons?

Is the DeSantis answer to preventing future Parkland massacres to arm teachers? How will that sell with the fed-up David Hogg/Emma Gonzalez generation and all those older folks inspired by their outrage-driven activism?

Ron DeSantis won the nomination talking a lot to Fox News – over 120 times since getting the Trump endorsement in December. Fox provided a nice safe space to preach the simplistic Gospel of Trump. Andrew Gillum won his party’s nomination having real conversations with everyone, everywhere. He has the quiet fearlessness of a man who puts others first.

His opponent has not revealed much of a platform. Until he figures one out, he will continue to pound Gillum with those “far out” labels, doing everything possible to make them stick.

And Gillum will continue to answer: “For Floridians who are struggling, these labels mean nothing.”

Courage, compassion, and common sense. Radical.

There is so much more, but for now, my two minutes are up.