"Maybe Beto Can't Debate Ted Cruz Because"

About

Maybe Beto Can't Debate Ted Cruz Because refers to parodies made of a tweet by the Texas GOP Twitter account which suggested that Senator Ted Cruz' Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke could not debate the senator because he had a gig with his old band, attaching a promotional photo of the politician from when he played with the group. The tweet was mocked by many for backfiring and making O'Rourke appear very cool, and was turned into a snowclone in some parodies.

Origin

On August 28th, 2018, the Texas GOP Twitter account, @TexasGOP, tweeted an image of Beto O'Rourke and his bandmates in Foss, which played in the 90s. The tweet was meant to show O'Rourke as unprofessional.

Spread

After the tweet was posted, it was mocked by many Twitter users for inadvertently making O'Rourke look cool. User @Neighbormania sarcastically tweeted "Definitely don't want to vote for this cool guy who did fun stuff and had friends," gaining over 380 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, left). User iCyclone said that he was glad to see an elected official who's "lived life" as opposed to "walking corpses in suits" (shown below, right).

Others compared O'Rourke's past to Cruz's, making Cruz appear dorky. User @RSchooley showed an image of Ted Cruz as a mime, gaining over 3,100 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, left). User Ashley Feinberg tweeted photos showing Cruz supporting George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle and O'Rourke performing, gaining over 1,400 retweets and 8,500 likes.

Another strand of jokes was to take the TexasGOP tweet and turn it into a snowclone. Twitter user @BrandyLJensen posted a parody that gained over 100 retweets and 1,300 likes (shown below, left). Another snowclone was tweeted by user @dreadfulpoint (shown below, right).

Texas GOP attempted to save face later by saying those that were responding to the tweet with backlash were "Buzzfeed contributors, out of state liberals, and people who use the word "rad." We feel very owned :'(."

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References