Running with Beto was enthusiastically received by hundreds of supporters at its world premiere at the Paramount Theater at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. The film is mostly warm liberal embrace for Beto O'Rourke and his ultimately unsuccessful progressive campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 election. It isn't a very serious academic campaign film. It is mostly a soft and supportive portrait of the enthusiastic candidate and his young family. It paints a portrait Beto, his enthusiastic staffers and his dedicated volunteers. It is a fun film for all those who put their heart and soul into the Beto crusade. Folks who loved Beto and the daring grassroots campaign to turn Texas blue will love the film. Ted Cruz supporters will probably hate it. In Austin, the audience absolutely loved and especially loved when Beto and his wife and daughter showed up on stage with the director at the end of the film. If you are looking for affirmation about what could have been you'll enjoy this entertaining campaign film. Of course, Beto O'Rourke's campaign failed to win, but it did begin a process of remaking the Texas Democratic party (through his effort to visit all 254 counties) in Texas. If Texas ultimately does turn blue, people will come to understand that it all began with Beto's grassroots campaign.

... and the diverse group who supported his initially Quixotic run for the Texas Senate seat held by Ted Cruz, thought unbeatable at the beginning of the campaign. It shows you more about his wife and children than you normally get to see about a politician, and what I saw I liked. Beto is certainly a magnetic personable guy, but one thing I took away from this documentary is he doesn't seem quite ready for prime time yet.

As three term Congressman from the El Paso area he was certainly ready to be one of a 100 senators, but now he is running for president, and if there is anything that the presidency of Barack Obama taught me is that prior executive experience is necessary for a president to hit the ground running. Obama had only a partial term as a senator when he became president, thus he lacked experience in the skill of negotiation with different factions. By the time he had that experience it was two years later and Congress was controlled by the GOP who had no interest in doing anything but blockading whatever Obama might want to do. But I digress. Back to Beto.

Beto tells you a little about what he wants - gun control and universal healthcare - and a little about what he does not like - migrant children separated from their parents at the border and Trump's wall. What he doesn't tell you in this documentary is how he hopes to pay for what he does want, and what alternative he has to what he does not like. He is essentially a great personality without detailed policies where Hillary Clinton was a great policy wonk without a great personality, at least that's what came across in public.

Overall I would recommend this work as a good introduction to the man and the excitement he drummed up in 2018 in The Lone Star State. I am impressed that he seems unsullied from his six years in the House. And any native Texan as myself is impressed with anybody who can rattle off the names of all 254 counties in the place I will forever call home no matter where I live.

Watching how some smart people managed to fool many people that Beto is anything more than an empty suit full of platitudes was a little interesting, but the guy is so fake I couldn't understand why people were so enamored with him.