Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke attempted to flee the scene of a drunken driving crash in 1998, per an eyewitness report unveiled in reporting from the Houston Chronicle.
Though O’Rourke has addressed the incident more broadly in the past, important details regarding the extent of the danger to public safety it represented only came to light on Thursday.
The now 45-year-old had just turned 26 when he drove drunk at “a high rate of speed” on Interstate 10, hit a truck, and barreled across the median into oncoming traffic.
A witness told police that O’Rourke tried to drive away from the scene, according to the Chronicle’s report.
These new details — that a crash was involved and that an eyewitness says O’Rourke tried to flee — could present political fodder for opponent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whom O’Rourke hopes to unseat.
In an op-ed O’Rourke penned Monday morning in the same paper — three days prior to the Chronicle’s release of the more detailed version of the incident — O’Rourke described the incident as a “far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse.”
He was comparing the seriousness of a drunken driving arrest to that of attempted forcible entry for which he had been arrested 23 years ago at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Unseating Cruz may prove to be a tall order — one which just became even taller on Friday, when President Donald Trump announced his intention to stage a “major rally” for the incumbent senator in October, using the “biggest stadium in Texas we can find.”
In Friday’s tweeted announcement, the president called O’Rourke a “disaster for Texas — weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”
I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October. I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2018
Many Texans are quite keen on all of the issues Trump cited — but not so keen on anyone who crashes a car and then tries to flee responsibility.
As citizens of the Lone Star State might say, “That dog don’t hunt.”
I remember when Mitt Romney allegedly gave a schoolmate a haircut at age 15 and it was a window into his monstrous soul. An *adult* Beto O'Rourke nearly kills people in a depravedly negligent drunk-driving accident and then tries to flee the scene, and it's "but people grow!"
— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) August 31, 2018
Beto, who’s forever being compared to the Kennedys, is more of a Kennedy than anyone knew https://t.co/E8Lgo0sTyY
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) August 31, 2018
Buh-bye Beto. Your career just hopped a lane and crashed into oncoming traffic. https://t.co/hyq0jgGJ3F
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) August 31, 2018
Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.
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