ANALYSIS:
Beto O’Rourke’s planned interruption of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s press conference about the deadly school shooting in Uvalde drew condemnation, admiration and millions of views on social media.
That’s just what Mr. O’Rourke wanted.
The 49-year-old Democratic candidate for governor had taken a page out of the political playbook that prescribes attention-grabbing moves that go viral on Twitter, Instagram and other social media, revving up the base and helping raise campaign cash.
“Political candidates are going to be less confined by traditional aspects of campaigning because they have to be,” Texas Democratic Party strategist Matt Angle told The Washington Times. “The way media covers them now, it’s in shorter bites. It’s very hard to get your message conveyed directly to voters without going through a filter.”
Democrats and Republicans are increasingly skipping the “filter” of mainstream media and creating their own storylines that draw rants from their critics, raves from their political bases and lots of attention they otherwise might not get.
In Mr. O’Rourke’s case, storming the Abbott press conference went viral immediately.
“The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing,” Mr. O’Rourke told Mr. Abbott before police forced him to leave.
Some called it a political stunt, but Mr. O’Rourke’s confrontation may jump-start his stalled campaign to unseat the Republican governor. Polls had been showing Mr. O’Rourke trailing Mr. Abbott by about 7 percentage points.
“Clearly, whatever he was doing wasn’t working,” said Clyde W. Barrow, political science department chair at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. “And he had to do something dramatic to really put some energy into his campaign. It may be too early to judge whether or not he’s been successful, but he certainly generated a lot of press.”
House Democrats and Republicans are using attention-grabbing antics to bolster their stardom and stand out in crowded fields of congressional lawmakers.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat with a far-left agenda and huge social media following, made a viral entrance at the 2021 Met Gala in New York City. She wore a white ballgown emblazoned on the back with “Tax the Rich” in blood-red letters.
“The medium is the message,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 32, said on Instagram.
Critics mocked the dress and called Ms. Ocasio-Cortez a hypocrite for wearing it. Others praised her head-turning audacity.
“She is the only one who has used her time on the carpet to make a controversial political statement,” Vogue magazine contributor Sarah Spellings said. “Of course, who else in Washington would dare?”
This list of politicos known more for being outrageous than reasonable is growing.
Weeks after AOC debuted her Met dress, Republican firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, took a swipe at her liberal colleague.
She posed next to former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a red dress with a “Let’s Go Brandon” message on the back. The phrase has come to symbolize disdain for President Biden — a euphemism for “f—- Joe Biden.”
The image of her with Mr. Trump was quickly and widely circulated on social media.
Mrs. Boebert is no stranger to viral moments. In March, she shouted at Mr. Biden during his State of the Union speech in the House chamber, accusing him of causing the deaths of 13 military service members by botching the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Since time immemorial, politicians have used props and stunts to make their point,” University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato said. “After all, props and stunts attract a lot more attention and tend to last longer in people’s memories than a quote in a newspaper or a speech.”
Social media has amplified the antics, and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an octogenarian, has figured out how to go viral.
A video of her ripping up a copy of Mr. Trump’s State of the Union speech in 2020 as she stood behind him on the House podium has been played thousands of times on social media. It became a GIFable moment for the liberal base and came to symbolize the Democrats’ opposition to the Trump presidency.
Mrs. Pelosi said it was spontaneous, but critics accused her of preparing for the move by making small tears in her copy of the speech.
Mr. O’Rourke’s interruption of the Abbott press conference also appeared premeditated.
Members of the media said people were holding seats for Mr. O’Rourke ahead of the press conference and, just before it started, he took one of those seats to position himself near the stage where the governor was speaking.
Mr. O’Rourke’s brief finger-wagging admonition of Mr. Abbott has been replayed hundreds of thousands of times on social media by fans and critics.
“There’s no question that the proliferation of short clips through social media makes these moments more shareable but also more sticky,” Austin-based Republican Party strategist Matt Mackowiak said. “As we’ve seen the country move to a more polarized place, you have people that share things that match their worldview, and it kind of ricochets throughout like-minded people very quickly, and that happens on both sides.”
Mr. Angle defended Mr. O’Rourke’s move to crash Mr. Abbott’s press conference in the wake of the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde.
Mr. O’Rourke, who has flip-flopped on gun control, is now backing the elimination of some types of semi-automatic weapons, including the AR-15-style rifle used in the Uvalde massacre.
Critics said Mr. O’Rourke was seeking political gain by confronting the governor at an event focused on slain children, devastated parents and a grieving community. Mr. Angle said it called out Mr. Abbott on gun control measures that Democrats want to implement.
“I wouldn’t put that in the category of stunts,” Mr. Angle said. “I would put that in the category of an aggressive move to force Greg Abbott to confront something he dodges constantly.”
Political antics can backfire, too.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a freshman Republican from North Carolina, drew attention by calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug.” He then lost the backing of most of the House Republican Conference by claiming lawmakers participate in drug-fueled orgies. Mr. Cawthorn was also caught driving without a license and cited twice for bringing a loaded handgun into an airport.
These antics likely cost him his seat. Mr. Cawthorn lost a May 17 primary to Republican state Sen. Chuck Edwards.
“There are serious, thoughtful people out there that are trying to do good work and provide constituent service and address major issues facing the country,” Mr. Mackowiak said. “But they don’t get viral moments. So they don’t have massive small-dollar donor bases, and they don’t get on Fox and MSNBC. I don’t have the answer for that today. But there’s no doubt this trend has been intensifying and accelerating. You might even call it the Twitter-fication of politics.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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