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Friday, November 30, 2018
Evolving
Monday, November 26, 2018
It should tell us something about her home country that a mother is willing to travel 2,000 miles with her 4-month old son to come here. How we respond when she arrives tells us something about ours.
Jason,
It should tell us something about her home country that a mother is willing to travel 2,000 miles with her 4-month-old son to come here. Should tell us something about our country that we only respond to this desperate need once she is at our border. So far, in this administration, that response has included taking kids from their parents, locking them up in cages, and now tear gassing them at the border.
People are leaving violent countries where they fear for their lives. Without money, they are subsisting on hope for their kids, for themselves, that they can get to safety. After being denied the ability to lawfully petition for asylum for the last 10 days, they are desperate.
We choose how to respond to this challenge.
Let's do this the right way and follow our own laws. Allow asylum seekers to petition for asylum at our ports of entry. They must do so peacefully and follow our laws; but we must also ensure the capacity to effectively and timely process those claims (right now 5,000 waiting in Tijuana and only 40 to 100 are processed a day).
Those who have a credible fear of returning to their home country (as determined by a U.S. judge) will be able stay until their full asylum request has been determined. Those applicants ultimately granted asylum will then live in the U.S., make us a better country for being here, and those who are not granted asylum will be returned to their home country.
Longer term: work with the people of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to address underlying conditions that are causing them to flee in the first place. That means addressing effects of our failed past involvement in those countries (in their civil wars, drug trade and drug wars) and the institutional failings in those countries (rule of law).
It won't be easy and will involve a much greater investment of time, focus and resources. Or we can continue to ignore those countries and their people until they show up at our border.
- Beto
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Grateful
Jason,
Amy is watching Last of the Mohicans in the other room with the kids. We started it last night after Ulysses' basketball game. Pizza, carrots, Mohicans and then early to bed.
This morning, before everyone got up, I went on a run with Artemis and then made breakfast. Scones, German pancakes, bacon, eggs, and some bread that Jim and Christine brought by last night with butter and jam on it. Some coffee from beans that a friend in Austin sent to us last week. It's not Whataburger, but...
After breakfast, we went on a hike in the Franklins with friends and dogs. Glorious morning in El Paso, crisp and clear, you can see for miles at the top of Crazy Cat.
Listening to the war cries and shots firing from the TV speaker in the other room, I'm smiling because we are all together again. Doing something -- just hanging out, just being around, just being -- that I haven't done in almost two years.
Been to all the kids' games over the last few days, made dinners at home, seen some friends and got to be outside, on the mountain and down at the river with Artemis.
I can hear Amy yelling in the other room "Don't watch this part! Don't watch it!"
And Henry saying "I'm watching it!" and laughing.
Already miss the road. Miss our team and the volunteers we'd see in every city, every town. Miss the energy and smiles and joy that I found all over Texas. Miss the purpose, the goal. Miss being part of something so much bigger than me or my life. Organized for a common cause and end. We were all together, really together. Never felt anything like that.
While there is loss, I also feel intense gratitude, waves of it every day. How was I so lucky to be part of something so amazing?
I can close my eyes and see so many faces and smiles. Hear the laughing and the cheering. I can see us hopeful and connecting as we shook one another's hand, looking at each other and nodding, knowing. All the stories that have been shared with me, all part of me. Every gift and kindness, every word of encouragement. Every bit of faith in what we had set ourselves to.
We were doing this for one another, doing this the right way, doing this for our country at what we all know to be a defining moment of truth.
The loss is bitter, and I don't know that I've been able to fully understand it. I try not to ask what I could have done differently because I don't know that there is an end to those questions or thoughts. There are a million different decisions I could have made, paths I could have taken, things I could have said or not said, said better or differently. I did my best, everyone did. For our democracy to work, for us to be able to continue to work together, it's important to be at peace with the outcome.
But what remains is this: I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have had the chance to do this with you. To bring power and joy to politics. People instead of PACs. Communities instead of corporations. Polls and consultants left to the wind and hopefully to the past. To have the confidence to move with the courage of our convictions. To open our hearts to one another. To not allow our differences (of party, of geography, of race or anything else) to divide us. To not know how it would end but to know that we had to give it everything.
I don't know how to fully make sense of what remains or to measure the impact we've had.
Certainly, we changed something in Texas and in our politics. At the very least our campaign reflected a change already underway in Texas that hadn't yet been seen in statewide campaigns.
Future campaigns will be won, influenced by the one we built. Candidates will run who otherwise wouldn't have. Some will take heart in knowing that you don't have to accept PAC money, you don't have to hire a pollster to know how you think or what you want to say. They will have seen in our campaign that there is real joy and power in being with people, all people. Republicans, Democrats, Independents. People who've never voted and never will. People who will vote for you, people who won't. People who live in the forgotten neighborhoods of the biggest cities. People who live in small towns that no Senate candidate has been to in 70 years.
I am grateful that you gave me a chance to be part of this. I feel responsible to you, to our country, to my kids and to my conscience to make sure that we continue to find a way to respond to the urgency that we still feel. It didn't go away Tuesday night. Our ability to convert hope and inspiration into action and change must not be wasted or kept to a candidate or campaign lest it dissipate and be rendered unusable at the most challenging time in our country's history.
Just know that I want to be part of the best way forward for this country -- whatever way I can help in whatever form that takes. Know that I am honored to have run this campaign with you and that I want to continue to honor and be honest to what was powerful about it.
For the time being, I am going to focus on being a better dad to our kids who have not had much of one for the last 22 months.
Movie is over. Now going to Molly's basketball game and then we'll see what's next.
Grateful to you for being a part of this, for giving me a chance to be a part of this.
See you down the road,
Beto
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
We’re just short on our fundraising goal
| Today, Tuesday, November 6 is Election Day! If you haven't voted yet, visit iwillvote.com to find your polling place and go vote! |
Jason,
I'll keep this short. We need to hit every one of our final fundraising goals to meet our GOTV commitments. Unfortunately, we've fallen behind on our fundraising today, and we need a lot of help making up lost ground. Can Beto count on you to contribute again?
As you know, we don't have any super PACs waiting in the wings to fund our final get-out-the-vote budget. We only rely on contributors like you -- that's why emails like this one are so important.
Please make a last-minute contribution as soon as possible before the polls close in Texas.
Thank you so much for everything you've contributed to make our campaign possible.
Jody Casey
Campaign Manager
Beto for Texas
We left everything on the line
| Today, Tuesday, November 6 is Election Day! If you haven't voted yet, visit iwillvote.com to find your polling place and go vote! |
Jason,
We've invested everything we can into winning this race.
Your contributions have powered an impressive get-out-the-vote machine -- from our amazing field staff to our advertising program -- up until the last minute. We've done it all together with no PACs, no corporations and no special interests. It's been ALL people, all the time.
We hoped that some more money would be donated on Election Day, so we planned our budget with that in mind. I'm wondering now if we can count on you to make one final donation to Beto before this is all over to help us pay for this historic GOTV effort.
Thank you for believing in Beto and this campaign. I am so humbled by all of the love and support from this team. It's been an honor working with you.
Jody Casey
Campaign Manager
Beto for Texas
Before we get too far into the day
Jason, our entire team is working their hearts out right now. There are only a handful of us in our El Paso headquarters holding down the fort while the rest of our massive team is out knocking on doors, talking to Texas voters to remind them to vote for Beto today. (I'm going block walking later today, too, once I wrap up a few final things here.)
Before we get too far into the day, I wanted to give you a quick update on our FINAL fundraising goal of the campaign:
Your contributions will make sure we can keep Beto's digital ads up all the way through when the polls close here in El Paso (Mountain time!), and keep our organizers out in the field, reaching every last voter.
Thanks -- I'll check back in once more today.
Jody Casey
Campaign Manager
Beto for Texas
Open this email for a picture of Beto voting
| Today, Tuesday, November 6 is Election Day! If you haven't voted yet, visit iwillvote.com to find your polling place and go vote! |
This will probably be the best photo you see all day today:
We need your help to elect ↑ Beto ↑ TODAY.
Every donation you give will help us keep our ads on airwaves and our organizers in the field -- reaching the Texas voters we need to get to the polls today.
