A 2016 Hillary Clinton for President campaign staffer says the fact that Beto O’Rourke (shown above with Oprah Winfrey) is a white male will prevent the Texas congressman’s 2020 presidential campaign from being successful.

Jess McIntosh, who served as director of communications outreach for Clinton’s second presidential campaign, said Thursday on CNN, “We have the most exciting, diverse field of candidates right now. And he has rightfully acknowledged that there might be a little bit of a misstep with him being a white guy, and maybe that’s not the face of the new Democratic Party.”

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Being white and male is bad, according to Democrats.

McIntosh noted that even O’Rourke has said the fact that he is white and male might hurt him with progressive voters.

O’Rourke also said he wouldn’t blame them!

“The government at all levels is overly represented by white men,” O’Rourke told Vanity Fair. “That’s part of the problem, and I’m a white man. So if I were to run, I think it’s just so important that those who would comprise my team looked like this country. If I were to run, if I were to win, that my administration looks like this country. It’s the only way I know to meet that challenge.”

“But I totally understand people who will make a decision based on the fact that almost every single one of our presidents has been a white man, and they want something different for this country,” Beto said. “And I think that’s a very legitimate basis upon which to make a decision. Especially in the fact that there are some really great candidates out there right now.”

Related: White House Insists on Calling Beto ‘Robert Francis’ — ‘That’s His Name’

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O’Rourke officially announced he is running for president on Thursday after originally pledging he would not.

O’Rourke was defeated by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz during the 2018 midterm election but elevated his profile considerably with progressives during his campaign.

What does it say about how beholden Democrats are to identity politics — that a progressive like O’Rourke could be penalized within his party for being born white and male?

Does his voting record matter? His personal background?

Does anything matter outside of his gender and color of his skin?

We have gone from striving to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, to judging people solely by the color of their skin and also their sex.

This is how extreme today’s Democrat Party has become.

Americans should hope none of them become president in 2020, regardless of their race or gender.

This piece originally appeared in The Political Insider and is used by permission.

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