46 year-old El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke, currently running against Ted Cruz for a Texas U.S. Senate seat, is the only Democratic rock star around. If he beats Cruz, he could theoretically make a run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2020. Would Beto be pushing his luck by doing so? Yes. Traditional grooming strategies suggest that O’Rourke will make a big splash at the Democratic convention in July 2020, by which time he will presumably have been serving for a year and a half, and then run for President in 2024. But what if A Democrat beats Trump in ‘2020?

Barack Obama officially launched his Presidential campaign in February ’07, at which time he had been serving as one of Illinois’s U.S. Senate reps for two years. Then he’d been laying the groundwork for months previously. It wouldn’t be that crazy if Beto runs for Prez in 2020; he’d be 48 by then and (if all goes well) a seasoned Washington Senator.

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