Some people are already asking why Beto doesn’t just run for the Senate again. I think this is a silly question, and not just because John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican he would face in 2020, is a far more popular figure than Ted Cruz, who beat him even though he is arguably the most hated man in American politics. Beto isn’t going to try for another Senate seat, not because he would have even less of a chance at winning in a presidential election year against a tougher opponent — though that is certainly true — but because, well, let him explain: “That would not be good enough for this community. That would not be good enough for El Paso. That would not be good enough for this country.”

Yes, you read that right. Actually winning the job that he failed to get last year despite raising gazillions of dollars and holding rallies with various celebrities and livestreaming his dentist appointments and being the subject of some pretty cringey erotica would now be unworthy of his considerable political talents. It wouldn’t just be some kind of letdown for him, personally — it would be unfair, not only to his city and his state but to the whole country and, no doubt, the planet, the solar system, and all the worlds that fall along the inner edge of the Orion Arm, if Beto ran for the Senate. He’s got bigger and better things to do.

The question is what, exactly, these things are. I’m not sure running for president is one of them. At some level I suspect that Beto considers political office beneath him. Any boor can win a Senate seat or take the White House if he wants to, right? But only Beto can traverse the vast expanse of this great nation, healing wounds and righting wrongs, defending truth and refuting error, eating pizza, skateboarding, feeding women poop, publishing the 2019 equivalent of a LiveJournal and maybe pounding out some free verse.