NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Beto O'Rourke barreled into the 2020 presidential race with breakneck energy and a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants campaign style that saw him leap atop tables to address overflow crowds with the organic, off-the-cuff candor that had made him a Texas sensation.
1 / 3FILE - In this March 15, 2019, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke greets audience members during a stop at the Central Park Coffee Company in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. O’Rourke entered the 2020 presidential race in mid-March as a political phenomenon, addressing overflow crowds around the country in off-the-cuff ways.
He's also set to offer more concrete policy plans on top issues. So far, he's issued just one, on climate change."I think, in part, I was just trying to keep up when I first started out," he said after addressing about 40 people at a recent house party in Newton, Iowa."I really feel like I've found my rhythm and my pace, and I just feel comfortable, and I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
It took O'Rourke nearly two weeks after announcing his campaign to formally hire Jen O'Malley Dillon to run his team. She was the deputy campaign manager of Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid and is only now moving to O'Rourke's headquarters in El Paso, Texas, after doing the job from Washington. Kathy Sullivan, a Democratic National Committee member from New Hampshire, noted that, after events,"If you don't have somebody with a clipboard taking names and addresses and phone numbers, you can lose contact with folks."
"It has been building up over time," O'Rourke said of his campaign apparatus."I think we're getting better organized all the time." One holdover from O'Rourke's do-it-yourself style in Texas is his insistence on driving himself between events, repeatedly climbing behind the wheel of rented Dodge Grand Caravans. Some campaign staffers see it as time that could be spent doing more productive — or at least less potentially dangerous — things, but O'Rourke's unfazed.
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