TEXAS: With the U.S. Midterm elections to culminate on 6th November 2018, many enthusiastic voters have opted for early voting and have already exercised their mandate. In an essentially red state, the 2018 U.S. midterms exhibits, an atmosphere, not less than the melodrama of the movie “Showdown in Little Tokyo” – except for the fact, in Texas, we have “Big Cruz Challenged by Little O’Rourke”, who has plugged on to the strings of guitar with a liberal rhetoric to challenge Cruz’s Crusade Conservative boat.
Texas Senate Race is essentially to convince moderate white Republican voters in Texas that they should swing allegiance from the Republican Party and Ted Cruz to vote for a democrat like Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
Dr Richard Pineda, Associate Professor at University of Texas at El Paso has cited “money” as one of the focal point in the Texas race and approximate 100 million has been raised, with a combined total. From it, 70 million to O’Rourke credit and remainder being raised by team Ted Cruz. The major driving force of the campaign money has emanated from “grassroots donations” and these are individual donations and not from PAC money. Dr Pineda briefed the foreign journalists about the O’Rourke trips to other states for fund raising purposes, a point which was picked up by the Ted Cruz campaign that “these are non-Texans” and are trying to influence and to quote-unquote “liberal money” is flooding into the state.
With the voters’ favouring the moderate white Republicans, yet in a divisive political environment, they find it tough to sail on the Presidential red trail; hence the conservative ideology is threatened, if they do not vote for Cruz.
As for the voters’ pertaining to the liberal mindset, they are advocated by O’Rourke on universal health care, liberalization of immigration policy and drug legalization – hence making them to add on to the vibes of blue wave.
Last but not the least, one of the many important points highlighted by Dr Pineda was the “inclusion of popular culture” in the senate race, which has rallied around the O’Rourke campaign. Recently, Willie Nelson hosted a concert that apparently drew a large number of people, close to 60,000 in Austin, Texas. His demeanour of a country side singer and an image of an outlaw perfectly portrayed the O’Rourke challenge to Cruz that liberal is here say to overtake the conservative tone in Texas.
However, for a concert at such huge level drawing attention of an international and national media, the Texas Senate Race and O’Rourke campaign based on popular culture, musical rallies and triggering liberal wave on a pop cache has succeeded in outpouring “support and visual connection” with O’Rourke campaign. Willie Nelson along with Leon Bridges both supporting O’Rourke have allowed him to use their concerts as a platform to address a great number of voters.
Further, Congressman O’Rourke has been on the Ellen Show and has been on the Colbert Night show. Last week end, the ratings of the show pushed down into the Valley which is the southernmost part of the state of Texas, where towns of| McAllen, Edinburg are in close proximity to the U.S. Mexico border. Beto also appeared with Los Tigres del Norte, which is wildly popular Norteno band and carries a tremendous amount of pop cache along the U.S. Mexico border and with folks in the Valley.
To recapitulate on pop cache on an anecdotal note, Dr Pineda cited “seeing three different people wearing Beto t-shirts, while he visited Chicago as to be remarkable” and added on that many people are following the Texas Senate Race outside the state. Pineda contemplated explicitly with the reporters that this is one of the most unprecedented race, with a unique campaign based on pop culture to awaken the soul of the voters to “swing their allegiance from Cruz to O’Rourke”. O’Rourke campaign strategy relies on pop culture and country side music to touch the immigration issues which is a key factor for U.S. national security and hence on high importance for Americans to vote for.
So whether Willie Nelson songs will hypnotize the first time voters in Texas, the real test would be to see the voters’ taking a decision on whether to sail on the political correctness of the liberal challenge or keep floating in the trance of the conservative ideology boat.
Thus, the night of 6th November 2018, will historically determine the fate of Texas Senate marathon, but for the time being – the latest poll results demonstrates Cruz holding a 3 point lead over his Senate challenger O’Rourke – ahead of the most thrilling and historic mid-term elections, which are termed as more important than 2016 U.S. Presidential race.
Dr Richard Pineda cites O’Rourke comments about why kneeling during the national anthem was the sort of most American way to protest that caught a lot of people’s attention has contributed to his popularity. However, to break the vibes of the red wave – the voters’ need to be engaged with his liberal ideology, get disenfranchised with the President rhetoric – only then we can see O’Rourke heading to the Capitol Hill singing songs of “country road”.
Exclusive News Report on Texas Senate Race By: Kanwal Abidi
White House Correspondent and Bureau Chief, Washington D.C.
