O'Rourke is pushing his debate games luck with Cruz

As of this morning, it's been three full weeks since Ted Cruz proposed a five-event broad-ranging set of debates with Beto O'Rourke. It's been about a week since Ted's camp pushed for nailing down just the first debate in that set, for Aug. 31 in Dallas.

And, Beto's refused to sign off on either, in what's looking like deliberate strategery.

Now, Beto may think that Ted needs to be "fairer," especially about the Friday night times.

(Update, Sept. 14: They've agreed to a three-debate set. Ted gets two of the three to be moderated format vs one town hall, so he wins that compromise. Beto gets two moved off Friday, and the one that is Friday is a 6 p.m. start, so he wins that. Per a poll I have on Twitter, I'd call it a split decision.)

Tosh.

First, when has a Republican ever been fair in today's world?

Second, and more seriously, that's not how things work in politics in general.

Cruz is the incumbent, and you, O'Rourke, are the challenger. Unless the offer is blatantly bogus, you take one-quarter of a loaf instead of none. (And, this is a one-quarter loaf, at least; it's not blatantly bogus.)

If you really think playing the "fairness" card instead of accepting the deal will work? Wrong.

Ted's gonna play the chicken card, ace through 10, for a chicken royal flush on you.

As for the Friday nights issue? Maybe Ted's thinking he can not only bury the debates in general but that more women, more Democratic-leaning women already in your camp, will watch then. I don't know.

I DO KNOW, though, that there is this thing called the "Internet." Whichever teevee station or stations hosts each debate, it will surely be on that station's website soon enough afterward. Commercial teevee folks will want the clicks and retweets for ad dollars.

It will be available to be retweeted and Facebooked and Instagrammed with spin attached and spread all over, on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Beyond that, the Friday Night Lights issue is kind of overrated. Here's why.

Typical small, but not tiny, town? About 10 percent of the adult population of the town not directly associated with the high school turns out for the game. Maybe 15 percent. No more than that. For instance, in a town of 5,000, you've got almost 4,000 adults. Subtract teachers, administrators, support staff and spouses. You're at around 3,500 adults. Somewhere between 350 and 500 of them will be at a typical game. Half or a little more of the high school and connectees will, for another 250. That gets you to 750. Majority of your students will be there. That gets you to around the 1,000 people that show up for a game in a town of 5,000. Even in more enthusiastic towns, it's no more than 20 percent of the non-connected population and no more than 60 percent or so of the high-school connected population.

As for the polls that might indicate Beto is on firm ground in pushing his luck? People who have been in Texas any length of time and have political savvy know that polls here regularly overestimate likely Democratic turnout. And, that could be extra problematic, per C.D. Hooks, if Beto's field strategy, and dealing with some core constituencies and regions of Dem support, backfires.

Related to that, from Anne Helen Peterson of Buzzfeed, Beto now has his first nationally written political puff piece. Maybe he's helping its 8,000 words help. Certainly, Peterson drinking his Kool-Aid, as I note here, helps.

That said, this shouldn't be surprising to people who look critically at some of Beto's campaign positions. I'm thinking particularly of single payer, Medicare for All, national health care. Specifically, I'm thinking of how ConservaDem Beto not only refused to back John Conyers' HB 676 in the House, on semi-specious but not totally specious grounds, but also refused to support Bernie Sanders' Senate bill on explicitly neoliberal grounds, namely that it didn't require people to pay enough out of their own pockets.

You read that right.

And, Peterson is NOT one of those people who looked critically at Beto's positions. She three times mentions him talking about "universal health care" without apparently looking at his actual stances.

As for Beto's enthusiastic Millennial volunteers?

Hey, kiddie pool waders, at some point, your ignorance of Beto's stance on this issue passes from accidental to willful. Maybe it already has.