It's Beto vs. Booger Cruz

Beto O'Rourke

And a Green and a Libertarian to be named next year.

Joaquin Castro has already announced he won't challenge El Paso Congresscritter Beto O'Rourke in the Democratic primary for the right to run against Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate next year. And, it's hard to imagine anybody else other than a possible "perennial candidate" or two getting in that primary.

And today, Matthew Dowd, former Shrub Bush strategerist [sic — think about it], although he has called the two so-called major parties "dinosaurs," has announced he will not run as an independent. He may have figured, as I thought when I first blogged about the possibility, that he was seen as not being on the ground enough in Texas or something.

Beto has some good bona fides — favors marijuana legalization, opposes much of the War on Drugs. He's also, as of Tuesday, House co-sponsor of the "No PAC Act," designed to bar Congresscritters from taking PAC money. Overall, he'd at least be left of the center of today's Democratic Party, per On the Issues. And, he was a good enough campaigner to topple Silvestre Reyes.

On the other hand — and to riff on Idries Shah, we normally need more than two hands, because there are more than two sides or views — per this graphic, O'Rourke has yet to become a co-sponsor of John Conyers' HB676 Medicare for All bill. The Berniecrat type folks at the Down With Tyranny blog (one of the trio is a spinoff from a Digby blogging assistant) would puff Beto's work on the No PAC Act while not noting he's failed to co-sponsor HB676.

And, without Castro challenging him, if O'Rourke hasn't endorsed single-payer by now, he won't by November 2018. And, if he won't by then, he'll never back it. That — the desirability of a Dem primary in hopes of forcing a single-payer endorsement out of either Beto or Joaquin — was the subject of my blogging a month ago.

Admit it, Texas Dems.

That said, Beto's only real shot at winning anyway, IMO, had been with Dowd in the race.

But, it doesn't matter, to me. As long as he won't back single-payer, I'll vote for any legit Green in the general next year.

So, there you go, Texas Greens. Let's hope somebody a cut above the Brandon Parmer level throws his or her hat in the ring next year.