So let’s just be forthright and candid about Robert “Beto” O’Rourke: as a candidate, he’s a disaster pick.  An absolute train wreck.  While his effort is undeniable, and the overabundance of time he has on his hands to dedicate to the trail is unquestioned, he has a remarkable amount of baggage.

As Jim Geraghty recently pointed out:

If Beto had an R after his name instead of a D, you’d hear he was [a] boarding-school-attending judge’s son who dodged serious charges for the DUI & burglary, used eminent domain to gentrify poor Latino neighborhoods & married into a billionaire’s family. 

He’s right, of course.  To this point Beto has survived thanks to the generosity of an adoring media that so badly wanted him to defeat Ted Cruz in their Texas Senate race they were willing to cover Beto’s skateboarding and guitar playing rather than the fact that he almost killed a person and fled the scene of the crime.

Erick Erickson wrote yesterday, Reuters is now slowly publishing stories about Beto was part of, “a notorious group of hackers, wrote fantasies about killing people, including running over children.”  Reuters has had that information since his Senate campaign but is just now releasing it.  And there’s a reason why: it’s one thing to bury scandalous information in a statewide Senate race.  It’s quite another to keep all the skeletons in the closet from emerging under the bright lights of a primetime presidential battle. 

And that’s why Beto, despite his impressive fundraising, has stumbled so badly out of the gates.  It’s why he spent his first days apologizing for offending feminists, and acknowledging his privilege.  He’s just not a good candidate.

And yet don’t underestimate the ability of the Republican Party to sabotage themselves with unforced errors.  Look no further than the desperate-looking social media slam the RNC published on St. Patrick’s Day that made fun of O’Rourke’s DUI by referencing his Irish name.  Why?  Many were offended, more than a few called it racist, it became a news story, and whether or not you think the joke was funny or the outraged reactions were pearl-clutching nonsense, the simple fact remains that the RNC managed to turn Beto O’Rourke into a sympathetic figure with their stunt.

If Republicans think they are going to be able to win by mocking the past moral indiscretions of Robert Francis O’Rourke, they might want to take a hard look at the man they will re-nominate.  No Republican should ask for a morality competition when The Donald is their candidate.

Smart money says that O’Rourke is out of his league and has entered this race for two primary reasons: (1) He doesn’t want to lose a second Senate race in Texas by facing Cornyn in 2020, and (2) Facing off against Cruz (a man the media hates with a burning passion) catapulted O’Rourke to more popularity than he will ever be able to achieve on his own again.

The smartest thing the right can do with a radical leftist like O’Rourke (and he’s already gotten to work exposing himself as such) is get out of his way.  Let Booker, Harris, Warren, Biden and company have a go at him.  When that happens I’ll be shocked if a lot of folks on the left don’t start scratching their heads saying, “Whatever made anyone think this guy was a good idea?”