Maybe this is less obvious to you guys because a lot of you aren't immigrants, but it's been quite clear from the beginning to me that Beto's distinguishing issue is immigration. It was all his political messaging was about between the end of his senate campaign and his presidential announcement. Personally, I feel pretty confident that Beto, if elected, will push wholeheartedly for more liberal immigration policy, whereas I am less confident this is true of others, who have shown protectionist instincts in the past. (Plus, I think he has the best chance out of all of the candidates to influence the terrible rhetoric surrounding immigrants in a positive direction.) As an immigrant, and as someone who is generally interested in the freedom of human beings to move to places in pursuit of a better life, this is a topic that is of very high priority to me, which is why I'm currently most leaning his way.
I'm honestly beginning to find the "he has no policy platform or distinguishing issues" rhetoric irritating, because it seems to me that this rhetoric is implicitly conveying the message that immigration isn't that important. Easy not to pay attention to immigration if you have the privilege of being born American—not so easy if you're an immigrant yourself. So yeah, I guess you could say I find this rhetoric to reflect a certain privilege on behalf of the speaker.
Beto's messaging has been very clear and distinct on this issue—a lot of people just haven't been paying attention.
