That will certainly be brought up in the campaign, but it was brought up in his House races and the Senate race and didn't seem to have much of an impact.

> That will certainly be brought up in the campaign, but it was brought up in his House races and the Senate race and didn't seem to have much of an impact.

A very actively contested Presidential primary isn't the same thing as a House or Senate race, and he didn't win the Senate race, either.

That's true. I mostly meant that it isn't a new development, it's been in the news before.

It was a close race, and he lost. That seems like an impact.

A Democrat losing in a race in Texas isn't exactly a shocking development.

And he did significantly better than most people and polls expected he'd do. 3 points, getting more votes than Hillary and Obama in a midterm year through persuasion more than turnout.

This after that, therefore because of that-you say?

>> "When he was younger, he was arrested on drunk-driving charges"

>That will follow him into the campaign far more than his CDC membership.

Will it? It didn't hurt George W. Bush.

Admitting to smoking pot didn't hurt Obama.

And Donald Trump... Jesus wept, Donald Trump.

Smoking pot is not the same as endangering lives. Also Donald Trump doesn't drink, let-alone drink and drive.

There's few crimes that are more dangerous than drinking and driving.

The point is that these people all have incidents in their past which should, in theory, have hurt them politically, but which in practice, didn't.

And my point is not all past incidents are created equal. So it's hard to compare the effects.

Is being arrested for drunken driving materially different than having not been arrested while drunken driving?

And hasn’t pretty much almost anyone driven drunk at least once?

> And hasn’t pretty much almost anyone driven drunk at least once?

No...

By drunk I mean above the legal BAC. It’s pretty easy to have a few beers and be above the legal limit.

It's also pretty easy to have a few beers and not drive

I wouldn’t call it very easy. You drive to a place and have some beers. Then you have the choice of leaving your car or drive above the BAC. Most people choose the latter.

> I wouldn’t call it very easy

Yes it is.

> You drive to a place and have some beers.

It's quite easy to decide not to drive to a place if you are going to have a few beers over too short of a time to safely and legally drive home, or to choose not to have too many beers if you need to drive to and from the place.

To your second question, no. To your first — it seems likelier that Beto had more than one drunk driving occasion before the time he was arrested. The circumstances of his arrest don’t look the best for him, with one witness claiming he attempted to leave the scene of the accident: https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2018/sep/25/beto...

>And hasn’t pretty much almost anyone driven drunk at least once?

Not once ever. That's super irresponsible.

To be honest, I do think a little less of Beto for it. Is it enough to move a vote, probably not - but it's not helpful.