'You will not see us demeaning any of the other candidates, ever uttering a personal word about anyone else,' he said.īut O'Rourke has made similar promises to keep things positive in the past - only to renege.įor more than a year, he refused to go negative against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz during his star-making, near-upset in November's Texas Senate race - only to reverse himself and refer to President Donald Trump's 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign nickname for Cruz, 'Lyin' Ted,' during a debate mere weeks before the election. O'Rourke vows not to attack his fellow Democrats, telling a packed, weekend house party in Dubuque that 'the diversity, experience and skills and expertise and perspective that' so many candidates running bring to the presidential race 'is to the benefit of all of us.' “I don’t know that anyone is born for an office or a position, I certainly am not but I do think that I find my purpose and function in life in doing this kind of work.' /h5I9M5EFpL- Kasie DC March 18, 2019 “Man I hope I didn’t say that” - responds after telling Vanity Fair he’s ‘just born to be in it’. He also said it would be his preference to pick a female running mate - but noted that he has to win the primary first. But those comments came when he was asked about whether his party would nominate another white guy for president in a year when a record number of women and minorities are running. On Saturday, O'Rourke acknowledged benefiting from years of inherent white-male privilege. He immediately drew overflow crowds at stops across Iowa, which kicks off presidential primary voting, but then was driving a Dodge Caravan to the battleground midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio - hoping to indicate that, beyond the primary, he can be a strong Democrat and win places where Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016. O'Rourke spent months hinting that he was running for president before finally announcing last week. But I do think that I find my purpose and function in life in doing this kind of work.'

I'm born to try to help bring people together,' he said, later adding: 'I don't know that anyone is born for an office or a position and I certainly am not. 'I think the context of that, which makes sense and is the way that I feel, is that I'm born to serve. Speaking to reporters in Milwaukee on Sunday, O'Rourke tried to clarify the Vanity Fair quote, saying when he saw the story, he thought, ''Man, I hope I didn't say that.''

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