O'Rourke's Past Treatment of Hispanics Rears Head, Spells Trouble for Election
I’ve often wondered why people are motivated to run for political office. It’s a brutal existence. And someone is always unhappy with you. The assaults on your character and loss of privacy just couldn’t be a life anyone would choose voluntarily, could it?
And then I wonder how politicians who were not rich at the time they were elected to office end up as multi-millionaires by the time their careers sunset into retirement.
As we survey the modern day political landscape, it’s fair to notice that very few people who hold high office are of meager means. They are either wealthy when the get there or they end up that way. And they always hold their offices for years and years. They make a career out of politics and it is a very lucrative living.
While many may campaign on helping the underprivileged or working class man to get them into office, somehow that public servant’s persona changes into something else and it doesn’t take long for that to happen.
This may be a very good outline of Beto O’Rourke’s political career. Recent facts have arisen that paint O’Rourke as a double talking political opportunist that left his constituents twisting in the wind while he greased the skids for his family’s business to benefit from a real estate development windfall when he served on the El Paso city council in mid 2000s.
On Tuesday, The New York Times unraveled the tale of Beto O’Rourke – a young and ambitious El Paso city councilman who married the daughter of a billionaire real estate developer in 2005.
A year after his marriage, his father-in-law, William D. Sanders, brought a proposal before the city council to redevelop an area of El Paso that was run down and depressed. Buildings were boarded up and there wasn’t much about the area that appealed to anyone but the barrio residents. But to them, it was home.
The area in question was within boundaries of O’Rourke’s district, and for the next two years he would defend the plan to replace the tenements and boarded buildings with shops, restaurants and other income-generating businesses to residents and business owners who opposed it.
The conflict of interest was not lost on the people of his district.
“Mr. O’Rourke was perceived by many as siding with the moneyed elite against angry barrio residents, small business owners and even the Jesuit priests who ministered to the immigrant community at Sacred Heart Church,” according to The New York Times.
David Dorado Romo, a local historian said, “Mr. O’Rourke was basically the pretty face of this very ugly plan against our most vulnerable neighborhoods,” and “added that the episode had resurrected longstanding race and class divisions in the city.”
Senator Ted Cruz, challenged by O’Rourke, currently has a seven-point lead in the polls according to RealClearPolitics.
Cruz’s campaign produced this short video ad that expressed the sentiments of the people Beto O’Rourke betrayed on his way up the political ladder.
https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/videos/238415133517022/
Residents at the city council meetings in 2008 pleaded with O’Rourke and the rest of the council to save their homes. They said: “We feel betrayed and we feel sad.”
“Especially with Mr. Beto because we supported him not one time but twice … we supported him.”
In the end, O’Rourke recused himself from voting on the proposal and the development was abandoned, in part because a ballot initiative prohibited eminent domain, but not before a lot of trust was eroded, constituents were betrayed and feelings were hurt in the community.
Regardless, O’Rourke showed his true colors throughout the process.
Perhaps this is the most puzzling of all. Residents there still support O’Rourke despite being betrayed by him nearly a decade ago.
“Despite the resentment among some over the development plan, Mr. O’Rourke has broad support in his home city, where 80 percent of the residents are Hispanic but still regard Mr. O’Rourke, who is white, as a favorite son. ‘Beto’ signs, T-shirts and lapel buttons are everywhere. Even many who objected to Mr. O’Rourke’s support for the redevelopment plan say they will vote for him, according to The New York Times.
So ask yourself, what motivates someone like Beto O’Rourke to run for higher political office? If you don’t like the answer, all I can say is if you want to eliminate this kind of thing from politics, you have to vote against it.
The Democrats never stray from their agenda. They remain loyal to their party regardless of how their party treats them.
You have to ask yourself, do you want Beto O’Rourke or someone like him to advance to the U.S. Senate? If not, then you have to vote against him on November 6.
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