"He was willing to be tough": Beto supporters brace for 2020 brawl

The race served as a contrast to a Senate campaign in which O’Rourke was reluctant to go negative against a Republican senator, Ted Cruz. And for some observers of the 2012 House campaign, that shift was puzzling. Chris Lippincott, an Austin-based consultant who ran a super PAC opposing Cruz, said O’Rourke “comes from a community … where people pay attention to politics and they’re engaged, and people are not afraid to sharpen their elbows and deploy them.”

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“They view politics as a contact sport in El Paso,” he said, and in 2012, O’Rourke “was willing to be tough.”

But in the race against Cruz, Lippincott said, “He didn’t go negative until the last possible second, and I think that cost him … I think the fact that he did not have consultants cost him.”

If he runs again — whether for president or some other office in Texas — Lippincott said O’Rourke should “go negative faster … just do a better job on the attack.”

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