Beto vs Cruz is reminding me of Trudeau vs Harper

[suffragette]

I’ve been reading some of the great posts on DU about the Beto campaign and how close this election is becoming.

Today, I was reading this interesting article about how the GOP’s effort to attack Beto by highlighting his youthful endeavors and attitude has flopped miserably.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/30/a-cool-dude-gop-attempt-to-insult-beto-orourke-on-twitter-backfires

Undecided voters in the suddenly surprisingly tight Senate race between incumbent Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke were handed some potentially game-changing news earlier this week by the official Twitter account of the Republican party of Texas. In a series of what one can only assume were meant to be revelatory tweets, O’Rourke, the party pointed out, seems like a really cool dude.
~~~
The flare-up follows O’Rourke’s most recent crossover into national news, after a video in which he passionately and eloquently explained why he supports NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

It’s a stance that has put him in stark contrast with Cruz and other Republicans, but as the tweets from the Texas GOP this week reminded us, there’s a lot of other things they don’t have in common.

As I was reading it, I realized that it is strikingly similar in many ways to the Trudeau vs Harper campaign in Canada.

I receive one Canadian TV channel here in Seattle and during that time was watching it a bit. Harper’s Conservatives we’re constantly running a series of ads around their theme of Trudeau being “Just Not Ready” which sought to paint Trudeau as too young and inexperienced to be Prime Minister. The implicit comparison was that Harper was the older, more experienced candidate.

Those ads clearly did not work the way they were intended. Instead they showed an optimistic and energetic young leader and Trudeau walked through the door they opened by addressing complex issues head-on and thoughtfully, much the same as Beto has been doing.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-liberal-major-1.3278681

Communications consultant and political observer Barry McLoughlin said the millions of dollars in advertising spent by the Conservatives to discredit Trudeau as "Just Not Ready" actually had a positive effect on the Liberal campaign.
~~~
McLoughlin said Trudeau also benefited from confronting the "elephant in the room" — his relative lack of experience — by handling criticism in a mature manner and transforming it into a message of compassion and energy. He remained largely sunny and upbeat, delivering clippable and quotable lines and staging memorable photo ops.

"They created an energized, youthful-oriented campaign," McLoughlin said.

We all know how the Canadian election turned out.

Hoping for the same in Texas.

[suffragette]

1. Shameless self-kick

[Zambero]

2. We can't have us any longhair rock & roll types

Except for that uncool guy Ted Nugent!

[NNadir]

3. I believe a similar dynamic played a role in the 2008...

US Presidential election.

Obama blew this away with his thoughtful and intelligent responses to similarly "loaded" questions.

Obama was not only the best President of my lifetime, he was also the coolest.