O’Rourke stumps in Iowa, stumbles with approach

WATERLOO, IOWA — Beto O’Rourke was shrewd and strategic at times in his first few days as a presidential candidate, but at other moments his remarks were so unscripted that awkward apologies were required. And sometimes it was downright weird, such as when he responded to questions about his violent fictional writings as a teenager under the pseudonym Psychedelic Warlord.

So it looked a lot like O’Rourke’s improbable 2018 U.S. Senate campaign, which endeared him to those looking for more authentic politicians. O’Rourke also offered plenty of ammunition for critics who question whether he’s ready to be the nation’s 46th president.

The 46-year-old ex-congressman’s core message is still a pledge to move beyond partisan feuding in Washington, a theme that Texas voters heard all last summer in his race against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

“I will work with anyone, anytime, anywhere to advance the agenda of this country and I will not distinguish based on party, or geography or any other difference,” O’Rourke told more than 300 people packed into a popular T-shirt store in Cedar Rapids. “All of us count, and I’m counting on everybody.”

That may help explain the decision to start his Iowa trip in Keokuk, a city of 11,000 in the state’s far southeastern corner, an area where residents voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2016.

“I wanted to go to communities that far are too often overlooked,” O’Rourke said, the same reason he offered for venturing to Republican strongholds such as King County — where Trump took more than 90 percent of the vote — in his 2018 Senate campaign.

Candidates don’t start presidential runs in Keokuk , said Norm Sterzenbach, the former executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party who is advising O’Rourke on how to translate his Texas-style campaign to Iowa.

Every viable candidate for president will end up visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties, as O’Rourke plans to do. So just visiting is not enough. But Sterzenbach said O’Rourke’s energy is different.

During a three-day tour of Iowa that began Thursday, O’Rourke covered 500 miles, springing onto bartops to deliver speeches, running a 5K race and getting sidetracked at a used record store where he bought old copies of vinyl records by Santana and Asleep at the Wheel.

“That was so awesome,” Crystal Walter said as she emerged from the crowd in Cedar Rapids, where she talked with O’Rourke one-on-one and posed for a selfie with him.

Walter, who is in her late 20s and was an organizer for Bernie Sanders in 2016, said she was blown away after seeing O’Rourke in person. Instead of marching through his policy positions, O’Rourke was genuine and thoughtful, diving deeper into issues, she said. Healso openly takes responsibility for mistakes he’s made, she said — O’Rourke had just told the audience about his 1998 DWI arrest and a criminal trespassing charge. She was won over.

“I still do love Bernie, but I think Bernie’s time has come and gone and I think Beto has it,” Walter said.

‘Male privilege’ moment

Further east in Mount Vernon, a town of about 3,000 people, Mary Liebig stood outside the Sing-A-Long Bar & Grill in a 30-degree windchill for a chance to meet O’Rourke. Liebig, who is from Iowa City but attends Rice University in Houston, said after seeing his Senate campaign, she knew other Iowans would respond to him.

“He’s very real,” Liebig said.

But that unscripted approach also had him in the crosshairs of others from almost the minute he launched his presidential campaign on Thursday.

First, O’Rourke caught flak for announcing his candidacy in a video alongside his wife Amy O’Rourke, who never had a chance to speak. Then, while in Keokuk, he was blasted for joking that his wife is raising their three children “sometimes with my help.”

Critics called it a display of white male privilege, the kind of quip no female candidate could make. O’Rourke agreed with them.

“Not only will I not say that again, but I’ll be more thoughtful going forward in the way that I talk about our marriage, and also the way in which I acknowledge the truth of the criticism that I have enjoyed white privilege,” he said.

He later added: “So yes, I think the criticism is right on. My ham-handed attempt to try to highlight the fact that Amy has the lion’s share of the burden in our family — that she actually works but is the primary parent in our family, especially when I served in Congress, especially when I was on the campaign trail — should have also been a moment for me to acknowledge that that is far too often the case, not just in politics, but just in life in general.”

It wasn’t even his first apology of the night. He also was left expressing his embarrassment over graphic fictional writings unearthed from when he was a teenager in which he talked about murdering children. The stories, written from a killer’s point of view under the pseudonym “Psychedelic Warlord,” were first reported by Reuters.

On Friday night in Iowa, O’Rourke said he was “mortified to read it now, incredibly embarrassed ... whatever my intention was as a teenager doesn’t matter.”

Texas Republicans saw the stories, too. Gov. Greg Abbott highlighted them on social media.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz launched a “Beat Beto Fund.”

Hours after O’Rourke launched his campaign on Thursday President Donald Trump mocked his delivery, saying he waves his hands too much when he talks: “Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts?” the president asked.

O’Rourke’s actions as a young man have also come back at him in past campaigns. Last fall during his senate race, law enforcement reports surfaced detailing his 1998 DWI on Interstate 10 in an El Paso suburb. O’Rourke lost control of his car and hit a truck. A witness told police that O’Rourke had tried to drive away from the scene, which O’Rourke denies. Arrested and charged with DWI, he completed a court-approved diversion program and had the charges dismissed.

The Texas GOP lampooned O’Rourke last year with a 25-year-old image of him wearing a dress on an album cover with his band-mates in the punk group Foss.

O’Rourke made abundantly clear that while there are stumbles, part of the success of his impromptu, transparent approach — and the advice of Amy O’Rourke since the start of his senate campaign — is to run like he has nothing to lose.

“I’m doing my best, imperfectly for sure,” O’Rourke said.

A pro-ethanol Texan

As unorthodox as he can be, O’Rourke was very traditional in other ways as he got started in Iowa. He made an unpublicized tour of an ethanol facility and during one campaign stop lauded the fuel additive that is a critical issue for Iowans. Ethanol is a renewable fuel made from corn and other plant materials that comprises up to 10 percent of commercial gasoline in the U.S.

In Texas, ethanol has been opposed by the oil industry and many lawmakers as a government-pushed additive that can damage car engines and fuel.

But when asked in Mount Vernon about it, O’Rourke sounded more like a native Iowan as he ticked off the benefits of turning corn into fuel.

“We are not just addressing a fuel standard, not just environmental concerns, but we’re reviving rural America in the process,” he said. “So let’s stand behind and with those farmers. Iowa is showing us the way.”

On other issues, O’Rourke stuck to ground he covered in 2018, stressing his plan to provide citizenship to “Dreamers” — who came to the country illegally with their parents as children — as well as to the parents who brought them here. He talked up his plans to decriminalize marijuana and expunge records of people incarcerated for possession of small amounts of drugs.

As for health care, O’Rourke continued to steer clear of supporting Medicare for all, but said he’s determined to push for universal health care so everybody has a chance to see a doctor, whether they can afford it or not.

While many of O’Rourke’s positions are similar to those of other Democrats seeking the nomination, it’s clear he creates a different kind of ripple in the field. As O’Rourke jumped into the race, U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both mentioned him by name in pleas for more contributions.

In Las Vegas, former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro reacted to a question about being the “other Texan” in the race.

“I’m the one from the other side of the tracks. I’m the one that didn’t grow up as a front-runner,” said Castro, the grandson of a Mexican immigrant. “I’m the one that is going to work hard each and every day, if we have to crawl through all 50 states and knock on doors to get support in this race. I’m going to bring a voice of folks who also don’t feel in this country like they’re the frontrunner.”

Though more than a dozen candidates are already in the race, former Vice President Joe Biden is still holding out, even as the polls show him leading the field. Asked about Biden during one stop, O’Rourke said he’s all for him getting into the race.

“We could use his perspective,” O’Rourke told more than 200 people in Independence, Iowa on Sunday.

O’Rourke has never held statewide office, unlike most of the other top contenders in the race, but he has risen into the top tier of challengers to Trump because of his narrow loss to Cruz and the fact that he raised over $80 million — the biggest haul ever raised by a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate.

Even as O’Rourke talked up ethanol and praised Iowans on his first-ever trip to the state, that love had a limit. While praising a few meals he had in the state, he said he is just not sure he’s going to be able to make it to a Taco John, a popular chain with more than 400 restaurants in the Midwest founded by an Iowan.

“The rule of thumb in El Paso is never eat Mexican food outside of El Paso,” he said in Cedar Rapids to a roar of laughter.

Next stop: Wisconsin. jeremy.wallace@chron.com