Telemundo could not help but mourn wannabe Latino Beto O'Rourke’s exit from the 2020 Democratic presidential primary given that he was, according to Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart, “the candidate that speaks the most and best Spanish” and “one of the candidates who was most in touch with the Latino community”.
Watch as Díaz-Balart and correspondent Julio Vaqueiro deliver the sad news, with the assistance of melodramatic footage of his “fans” in distress.
JOSÉ DÍAZ-BALART, ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: And now to the political chronicle because this same afternoon Democratic pre-candidate Beto O'Rourke announced that he was leaving the presidential race. O'Rourke was one of the candidates who was most in touch with the Latino community, but today he announced in a tweet that his service to the country will not be as a candidate.
[...]
JULIO VAQUEIRO, CORRESPONDENT, TELEMUNDO: These are images of his followers lamenting the news, comforting themselves after the pre-candidate´s announcement.
Maybe, just maybe, the first claim can pass if you look the other way at lousy Spanish in the name of “trying” to sound Latino. However, when out of the blue, O´Rourke answered a question in Spanish during the first Democrat debate on Telemundo, he not only excluded those who don´t speak the language, but he also used bad grammar, mixing words that in Spanish didn’t make any sense, and using masculine modifiers with feminine nouns. So much for his “perfect Spanish”, as correspondent Julio Vaqueiro sympathetically declared at the beginning of his report.
As for being “the one most in touch with the Hispanic community,'' Telemundo is clearly projecting here. O ́Rourke went all-out in selling that idea, especially during his (very short- lived) heyday, but he consistently trailed behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. A Univision News/University of Houston poll released on September 10, 2019, found that “Biden and Sanders continue to lead among Latinos (22% and 20% respectively).”
According to the poll, O'Rourke did lead the field of Latino support in his home state, Texas, as could be expected (interestingly enough, over former San Antonio mayor and actual Latino Julián Castro), registering 26% favorability among Texas Latinos and 19% among all voters polled in the statewide sample.
Not enough clout, not enough substance, way too much pretense. Hasta la vista Beto.
Click on “Expand” to view the full transcript of the above referenced report, as aired on Noticias Telemundo, on Friday, November 1, 2019.
JOSÉ DÍAZ-BALART, ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: And now to the political chronicle because this same afternoon Democratic pre-candidate Beto O'Rourke announced that he was leaving the presidential race. O'Rourke was one of the candidates who was most in touch with the Latino community, but today he announced in a tweet that his service to the country will not be as a candidate. Julio Vaqueiro is with us. Julio, you were with O'Rourke last week, you interviewed him, are you surprised about this?
JULIO VAQUEIRO, CORRESPONDENT, TELEMUNDO: Hi José, well look, it surprises and it doesn’t, José, because it is true that the campaign of Beto O'Rourke never found this moment of inertia to take flight, to be able to take off, the polls did not favor him, never reached double digits nationally, so he had to announce it in Twitter this way. “My service to this country will no longer be as a Democratic candidate.” In addition, he wrote a letter saying that he understood that it was time to join a stronger candidate in order to finally defeat President Donald Trump. These are images of his followers lamenting the news, comforting themselves after the pre-candidate´s announcement. But on the other hand José, I mentioned that it surprises us, it does surprise us, because just last week we interviewed him in Iowa, Telemundo News had an exclusive interview with him and had said no, that he was not going to throw in the towel, so it was.
INTERVIEW AUDIO: …. Hm, in this campaign?
BETO O´ROURKE, PRESIDENTIAL PRE-CANDIDATE: We can do it, it depends on Latinos.
JULIO VAQUEIRO: … now we must first reach the November 20 debate, you are still not eligible.
BETO: Yes
VAQUEIRO: What if you don´t, are you considering quitting the race?
BETO: No, since we need to improve our position in the polls, ah, so that we can qualify for the debates. Looking
DÍAZ-BALART: O'Rourke, the candidate that speaks the most and best Spanish
VAQUEIRO: Well, we saw it in the first Democratic debate we had for Telemundo, you asked him and he answered, the first one in Spanish, and "in a perfect Spanish" told us that he believed there was more time. In addition, a candidate Jose, who paid close attention to the issues of our community, to immigration, to the crisis after the El Paso shooting. Today was Elizabeth Warren, the first Democrat pre-candidate to say goodbye and thank him for his work.
DÍAZ-BALART: Has he announced who he's going to support?
VAQUEIRO: He hasn't said anything about it, we don't know who he's going to support, but it's sure to be news we'll soon be announcing.
DÍAZ-BALART: Julio Vaqueiro, thank you very much.
