Beto’s Running for Texas Governor, Reigniting Weird Fantasies About Him Everywhere

Well, well, well, well, well. Look who’s back: Beto’s back! Back to make all of Texas’s calves cramp from [redacted] too hard. By that, I mean he is back to run for governor for Texas, the Democrat announced on social media and in a Texas Monthly interview this morning.

O’Rourke will be going up against incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott in the 2022 election. In the Texas Monthly interview, he acknowledged that the challenge “is not going to be easy.” (No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since lieutenant governor Bob Bullock was reelected in 1994).

In his announcement video, O’Rourke highlights his focus on issues like restoring the state’s failing electric grids, expanding Medicaid, and marijuana legalization, in contrast to the kind of divisive “extremist policies” that he says Abbott has focused on, e.g., banning abortion. “I want to serve this state and try to bring the people of Texas together to do some of the really big work that is before us and get past this smallness and divisiveness that Greg Abbott has brought to Texas,” O’Rourke says in Texas Monthly.

The El Paso native burst onto the national political scene and into horny constituents’ fantasies in 2018 when he ran — and narrowly lost — against Ted Cruz for a senate seat. Instead of taking the goodwill he had garnered in that race and subsequently running for Senator John Cornyn’s seat, O’Rourke decided to transform his momentum into a massive L by joining a hundred other Democratic candidates vying for the presidency before dropping out amid financial strain and flaccid support.

But again: Beto’s back now! He looks good. A little older, a little grayer, but still as lithe as an elfin Gumby. Maybe third time’s the charm for this serial candidate. As we know by now, he was born to be in it.