Beto has a great name, a pretty wife, and a pretty nice house too, if you got a glimpse of the decor. Life is good.
And he’s got charisma, a conscience, and cash. He’s Kennedyesque. Tall, fit, and toothy.
Plus, he has a knack for sculpting the fog that bestirs the air around sensitive political issues.
For instance, the NFL’s insistence that kneeling down on the ground to protest police violence against minorities should not be allowed.
Hey, NFL! What about free speech? The Supreme Court has said that the middle finger is well within the rights of the American People.
So why not a gesture of humility, non-violence and supplication?
For God’s sake, it’s even legal to flip off a police officer.
So Beto is pretty well armed and equipped for a long drawn out attack from the right. It won’t be any picnic, but he has a chance.
The problem I have with Beto is his right arm. And sometimes his left.
In the video I saw, his wife was to his left, but that was a wrong move by the handlers.
They should have placed his wife to his right so she could hold down his airborne right arm.
Beto can’t talk without helicoptering his right arm up and down like a drone in a whirlwind.
If I have to watch that for the next two years I might change my vote.
My take is that he is trying to make every word in his speech the most important word in his speech.
Not good. Sameness is the enemy of the speaker, and Beto keeps hammering, pumping that right arm up and down, day and night.
Give it a break Beto! You’re tall, not small. You don’t have to spread your arms out like Hilary did–holding the microphone near her mouth and sticking her arm out on the other side. She did that because she was smaller than everybody running against her. She was trying to expand her psychophysical territory.
To me, Beto’s emotional expression reads like he’s a teenager trying to convince his Dad to let him stay out late.
“Please Dad, all my friends are going to be there.”
In the theater world it’s called emotional bending, and it generally weakens the actor who does it.
It is a begging and pleading gesture.
And lest you think that body language is trivial, think again.
Our minds ascribe moral intention to gestures if they show any hint of emotional expression.