HBO's Running with Beto was filmed last year, yet it already feels like a document of another era

The New York Times

The new documentary on Beto O'Rourke's failed 2018 Texas U.S. Senate campaign shows just how much a perception of a person could change over the course of a few months. "Since his much-covered near miss in November, Mr. O’Rourke has joined the teeming race for the White House, his story line being rewritten from Great Resistance Hope to vision-questing presidential Pippin, climbing on countertops to search for his corner of the sky," says James Poniewozik. "But Running with Beto — a special about a social-media-driven campaign, co-produced by the Dem-friendly polititainment empire Crooked Media — is also an example of the very of-the-moment challenge of running for office in the Trump era. To pitch yourself as a president, you must first prove yourself as a show." ALSO: Running with Beto says more about the political climate than it does about Beto O'Rourke.