ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Welcome to The Beto Show!

Running for president ain't no spelling bee. The top job doesn't always go to the smartest person on the ballot. If it did, Adlai Stevenson, Jerry Brown, Al Gore, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton would have all ended up in the White House. They didn't. Because they couldn't perform.

You see, running for president is performance art. And the goal is to capture the public's imagination.

Bill Clinton played the saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show." George W. Bush would work a crowd by speaking Spanish and grabbing people's cellphones to chat up whomever was on the other end of the line. Barack Obama practically changed his official address to Iowa and became a fixture at every picnic, festival, and barbecue in the state.

A former reality star, President Trump puts on shows nonstop. "What Trump promises" vs. "what Trump delivers" takes a back seat to "how Trump performs." It's the show that the audience comes to see.

This is how things work -- especially now when so many things compete for our attention. Republican or Democrat, it makes no difference. If you want my vote, put on a show.

Robert Francis O'Rourke -- a cultural enigma who goes by "Beto" while trying to woo Latino voters back home in West Texas but went by "Robert" at prep school and an Ivy League university -- understands this reality.

When Trump visited El Paso recently to push the idea that there is a national emergency on the border, the commander in chief set out to convince people that one of the safest cities in America was actually one of the most dangerous until a border barrier was built.

None of that is true. But since his days selling real estate in Manhattan, Trump has never let the truth interfere with a good pitch. The P.T. Barnum of Fifth Avenue used to attempt to convince people that Trump Tower had ten more floors than it really did.

Trump doesn't just sell the steak, or the sizzle. He can get by with just selling you the mere thought of a steak. That's a gift, folks.

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