Is Beto O'Rourke actually running for office?

Assessing the Texan's new campaign "strategy"

2020 candidate Beto ORourke.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Scott Olson/Getty Images, PytyCzech/iStock, -ELIKA-/iStock, njnightsky/iStock, bazilfoto/iStock, M-image/iStock)

Is Robert Francis O'Rourke actually running for president? Don't misunderstand me. I am fully aware that he remains, nominally, one of the 400 different generic white guy moderates currently seeking the Democratic nomination. (Actually, make that 399: John Hickenlooper's graceful exit on Tuesday via YouTube has narrowed the field slightly.) What I am asking is whether he actually wants to win.

I am wondering because Beto recently announced that he will not be campaigning in Iowa or New Hampshire, the states in which the earliest of these things called "primary contests" are held. (You need to win those, you see, in order to become the your party's nominee.) He is not the first candidate to do this, as a few political junkies would probably remind me if I did not mention it: Ignoring the early-voting states was also Rudy Giuliani's 2008 strategy. It is widely considered one of the worst in the history of American politics.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.