With Robert O’Rourke entering the Democrat presidential race, I thought you might be interested in a similarity in the manner in which he and another Texan have been introduced to the national audience in unusual publications.

With Robert “Beto” O’Rourke entering the Democrat race for the presidency in 2020, I am reminded of another Texan, Wendy Davis, who unsuccessfully ran for governor there in 2014.

The similarities between the two individuals came to mind when I heard that Vanity Fair, a pop culture and fashion magazine had published a puff piece on O’Rourke. In 2014, Vogue, a fashion and lifestyle magazine, featured a story on Davis.

The media was all agog over Davis, an attractive blonde state senator, who wore pink running shoes on the Capitol floor. She drew the attention of the national news media.

When Davis challenged Greg Abbott, she charged that he was out of touch with Texans. Living there at the time, I recall writing an opinion piece revealing that it was she who was out of touch by agreeing to sit for the interview by Vogue.

I questioned how many Texans read the chic Vogue, a publication primarily aimed at 40ish women, with some college, women who are employed with a median income of $58,612. I pointed to the magazine’s claim that 71 per cent of its female readers spend holidays abroad, a third of them have access to two or more cars, two or more apartments, premium credit cards and a personal trainer.

I asked, “does this describe the average Texas woman she hopes to represent?”

A fashionista, Davis told Vogue, “I’m happy in Lululemon, while home watching TV, but loves to wear dresses by Chloe and Victoria Beckham and Miu Miu or Louboutin heels.”

In the end, Davis lost, garnering just 38.9 percent of the vote to Abbott’s 59.3 percent, which included 62 percent of the married woman votes.

Now we have O’Rourke, the subject of a background piece in Vanity Fair. Like Vogue, it’s demographics reveal a median age readership of 46, 78 percent women, 22 per cent men, with an $87,674 median household income. Most of the readership is in the major liberal cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Instead of pink running shoes, O’Rourke is noted for his light blue shirt and jeans, and was photographed that way for the cover of Vanity Fair by well-known celebrity portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz.  I wonder, does he dress this way so we can’t call him an empty suit?

With Davis and O’Rourke, I’m reminded of the Texas saying, “All hat, no cattle.”

Not too knowledgeable on O’Rourke, having only read accounts of his campaigning against Ted Cruz in the mid-term, a close race in which he lost by a 50.8 to 48.3 margin, I decided to read the Vanity Fair feature.

O’Rourke’s quote, “I’m just born to do this,” taken from the conclusion of author Joe Hagan’s interview, is the title of the piece, and gives one a glimpse into O’Rourke’s ego.

Contemplating a run, O’Rourke tells Hagan, “I think ego-wise, we’re going to be O.K. if we don’t run. Where we won’t be O.K. is, if we don’t run and come to the conclusion later on, if we had run, man, this wouldn’t have happened. Things would have been a lot better.”

“You didn’t do everything you could,” his wife Amy adds. “We didn’t do everything we could,” he answers.

“This is the fight of our lives,” says O’Rourke, “not the fight of my political life kind of crap. But, like, this is the fight of our lives as Americans, and humans, I’d argue.

“I want to be in it,” says O’Rourke tells Hagan. Then to make it ever so dramatic, Hagan describes O’Rourke leaning forward, and saying, “Man, I’m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.”

O’Rourke is a narcissist, no doubt.

While it’s important to him to defeat President Trump – “that’s not exciting to me” – he sees himself as the leader that will make sure the generations that follow us can live here. His arrogance will not permit him to define himself against the crowded field of Democrats.

The fact that he has voted with the Republicans a third of the time during his six years will not bode well for him in the primary.

What does he stand for you ask? He wants health care for all to become a reality, although he hasn’t provided details. He supports the Green New Deal “in spirit.” More specifically, he wants to “(keep) the planet from warming one-half degree of Celsius and “the goal converting to 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade, I love.”

He believes there should be a higher top marginal tax rate, but doesn’t volunteer a number, to meet the existential threat of climate change, “it’s definitely going to involve higher marginal tax rates on the very wealthiest in this country.”

He sees his biggest strength as his unique credibility as a voice on immigration. He wants to end the war on drugs, raise the cap on work visas, and find a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, including Dreamers and their parents.

His record of run-ins with the law, his drinking, and his occasional use of vulgar language aside, after reading the Vanity Fair piece, I get the feeling that voters are going to have difficulty relating to O’Rourke, who is quintessentially Generation X.

Yet, as I prepare to push the “publish” button on this posting, the leftist media is referring to him as a “rock star” with an aura about him. It’s just the beginning, folks.

AND AS FOR DAVIS, she is considering a run against Sen. John Cornyn in 2020, but is waiting to see if Rep. Joaquin Castro decides to run. She says that she has urged him to run

                                   May God bless the United States of America.