It's in the "stars" (predicting by astrology and other means)

[gabrielle]

Okay, so there was no blue wave.  But the Dems have taken back the House, and a number of things happened last night to give progressives some hope, all the same.

Question for Eric the Green:  What are Beto O'Rourke's astrological chops according to your system?  He is being touted as a "rising superstar" in the Democratic party, in spite of having lost to Cruz.  If that's the case, there could be some hope for my generation having prominent figures on the political scene besides a few creeps and jerks (Greitens, Cruz, Ryan etc).  He was born Sept 26, 1972 in El Paso TX (time unknown).

Beto O'Rourke 'as hopeful as I've ever been' despite narrow loss to Ted Cruz

Quote:O’Rourke began his David versus Goliath mission to topple Cruz less than two years ago with a staff of just two – both old friends from El Paso – travelling in a rented sedan. He started from scratch in a state with next to no Democratic party infrastructure, criss-crossing the state to stump in all of its 254 counties – no small task in Texas, which is bigger than France.

Wherever he went, he planted seeds of a new Democratic infrastructure – something that has been sorely lacking in Texas since the 1990s. They began recruiting volunteers, often young and inexperienced but energetic and eager, who grew into an army by election day, numbering 25,000.

O’Rourke’s team created 727 “pop-up” offices, converting volunteers’ homes into hubs of activity. By the end they had knocked on almost 2m doors.

The Democratic candidate went to extreme lengths to mobilise every potential vote. When the Guardian reported on an Hispanic young man in Gonzalez that had never voted and had no intention of starting now, he dispatched his field officer from 70 miles away to register the individual and encourage him to cast his ballot.

Financially, he also tore up the traditional rulebook. He refused from the beginning to accept money from big donors or political action committees, preferring instead to rely on the beneficence of his passionate supporters.

The gamble worked – O’Rourke smashed previous US Senate fundraising records, hugely outgunning Cruz by drawing in about $70m from more than 1m small online donations to his opponent’s $30m.

In the end, the vastly superior ground game that the Republican party has built up over many years was simply too much for one individual politician to overcome.

But the narrow result still represents a stark improvement for the Democrats in Texas, a state that turned majority minority in 2004 and with its rapidly growing population holds enormous weight in US electoral politics.