Beto O’Rourke Is Campaigning In Iowa Obama Counties That Trump Flipped

Beto O’Rourke launched his campaign with an interesting Iowa strategy. O’Rourke is campaigning in Iowa counties that Obama won, but Trump flipped.

Garrett Haake of NBC News is with O’Rourke in Iowa and reported:

He went out of his way to say nice things of all the Democrats running. There is time for sharp elbow later in South Carolina. Look at where he’s starting. We are in southeastern Iowa. He’s going to counties that’s Obama counties that’s flipped to Trump. He’s showing outreach to people across the state in a way that says something about our broader strategy here. Yeah, I think the nice guy part of it is absolutely there. He talked about Donald Trump and he talked about anybody in this field being better than Donald Trump, it is clear that he wants to fight Trump on policies and does not want to get down in the mud with him and he’s not going to do that with his fellow Democrats it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”

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Beto O’Rourke is following the Obama model

Can a charismatic new face be a change agent candidate that unites the Democratic Party around a positive big message style campaign? There are nearly 20 candidates in the Democratic presidential field, but in terms of policy, there isn’t much daylight between any of them. Beto O’Rourke is interesting because he is a boom or bust candidate.
O’Rourke could launch and takeoff as Obama did during the 2008 primary, or he could fail to translate the style that he used in Texas into an effective national campaign.

Beto O’Rourke is trying to follow in Obama’s footsteps, and it will be interesting to see if he can pull it off.

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