Two Democratic campaign strategists told Politico that they are in discussions with Beto O’Rourke and his team.

One of the strategists described those conversations as moving to “an operational level” after weeks of discussing 2020 in more theoretical terms.

“O’Rourke’s advisers had been speaking with Democratic strategists for months about a potential campaign, but only at a relatively abstract level… But after a massive rally in his hometown of El Paso this week, O’Rourke is now becoming personally involved in discussions about the shape of a 2020 campaign, the strategists said.”

Beto O’Rourke “is coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Friday for a meet and greet with students and faculty, a closely guarded event that will be the former Texas congressman’s first visit to a key state in the battleground, industrial Midwest,” the AP reports.

Politico: “If O’Rourke was testing Democrats’ appetite for his potential candidacy, the signs he saw on Monday were reaffirming — beginning with a march to the rally that was so thick with supporters that organizers linked arms in a circle around O’Rourke and his family to keep them moving through the crowd.”

“The speech — and O’Rourke’s promotion of it beforehand — marked a pivot for O’Rourke from a contemplative period of wayfaring to a more traditional brand of campaign politics following his closer-than-expected loss to Republican Ted Cruz in the Texas Senate race last year.”

When his rally in El Paso, TX got underway last night, President Trump claimed that “69,000 signed up to be here. The arena holds about 8,000,” the El Paso Times reports.

He then thanked the fire department for getting 10,000 people in the El Paso County Coliseum, while noting that “tens of thousands of people are watching the screens outside.”

However, a fire department spokesman said 6,500 people were inside the venue and denied any special accommodations were made.

Trump then mocked the crowd size at Beto O’Rourke’s rally held at the same time saying it was no more than 300 people. However, the Texas Tribune reports the O’Rourke rally drew at least 7,000 people.

First Read: “Trump sure did elevate O’Rourke – by 1) going to El Paso in the first place and 2) deliberately trying to understate his crowd.”

Dallas Morning News: “Three months ago, in the afterglow of the Texas Senate contest and with few marquee candidates officially running for president as Democrats, Beto-mania was in full swing. Polls showed Beto O’Rourke in the top three, lagging only a former vice president and the runner-up for the party’s nomination in 2016.”

“The big question then was whether he would run.”

“The big question now: Has he missed his window of opportunity?”

“Beto O’Rourke is not shying away from the spotlight as President Trump prepares to hold a rally in the El Paso hometown of the former congressman and potential presidential candidate,” the Texas Tribune reports.

“On Monday evening, O’Rourke will lead a march through the city and then speak at a local sports center at 7 p.m. local time — the same time Trump’s rally is set to begin… The events are intended to highlight El Paso’s strength as a binational community — and push back against Trump’s long-sought border wall.”

“It’s hard to believe that I’m saying I met with Barack Obama — and I’m saying it to Oprah Winfrey.”

— Beto O’Rourke, quoted by The Week, discussing a possible presidential run with Oprah Winfrey.

Mother Jones found video of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) singing for a cover band he formed called The Sheeps, which performed punk rock classics.

“Band members apparently wore a variety of disguises on stage—most notably, tight onesies and sheep masks.”

“Beto O’Rourke is five states into his stream-of-consciousness road trip across the American Southwest, unaccompanied as he drops into a small-town diner for cobbler, washes his face in a lake and journals about the need to ‘clear my head,'” Politico reports.

“All of which is unfolding as the rest of the Democratic presidential field has broken into a sprint — Elizabeth Warren to New Hampshire, Kirsten Gillibrand to Iowa, and Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker to South Carolina… His absence from the fray has been noted — and his introspective writing style has been mocked. But amid much snickering, there is also evidence to suggest that if he does run for president, it could help him politically, advancing his off-beat brand.”

“With his online following, O’Rourke remains close to the 2020 conversation regardless of his location. And in the span of several days, he has generated a torrent of media coverage that — unlike Democrats in more public settings — he alone can control.”

“Beto O’Rourke has left Texas, decamping for a highly anticipated road trip, but his former advisers are quietly sketching the outline of a potential presidential run that would replicate — and on a national scale — the grassroots-driven organizing model O’Rourke employed in his Texas Senate campaign,” Politico reports.

“The effort is preliminary, and the imprimatur of O’Rourke was implied — not stated… Unlike many candidates-in-waiting, who have PACs or other organizations to assemble staff, O’Rourke is not yet assembling a campaign team.”

Politico: “Thus began Beto O’Rourke’s latest dispatch from El Paso, Texas, where the potential presidential contender filmed himself in a green bib — and with dental tools in his mouth — talking with his dental hygienist about life on the U.S.-Mexico border.”

“The unusual video, posted on Instagram, left jaws agape in Washington on Thursday. But it is in keeping with O’Rourke’s practice of livestreaming virtually anything — and, more recently, of focusing attention on the lives of people living along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Beto O’Rourke “is leaning toward running for president, according to four people who have spoken with him or his advisers in recent days,” Politico reports.

“But for a presidential contender, his radio silence is becoming increasingly awkward.”

“In Iowa and New Hampshire — where Democrats are accustomed to being courted aggressively by presidential contenders — calls from Democratic Party organizers to O’Rourke’s advisers go unreturned. And a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday that O’Rourke won’t make any decision before February and is preparing for a solo road trip — but avoiding early nominating states — bewildered even his supporters.”

“Republicans are feverishly digging into Beto O’Rourke’s past, a sign they view the former Texas congressman as a potential threat if he wins the Democratic presidential nomination,” The Hill reports.

“GOP organizations and political action committees have spent recent weeks delving into multiple areas of O’Rourke’s life, from his voting record to a drunken driving arrest in 1998.”

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) “is asking aides to create an itinerary for him to take a solo road trip outside of Texas where he would ‘pop into places’ such as community college campuses, as he considers whether to enter the 2020 Democratic presidential primary,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. O’Rourke’s trip would begin from his El Paso home and keep him away from Iowa and other early-voting states.”

“President Trump jabbed at Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), wondering aloud during an exchange with reporters why the Texas Democrat has been suggested as a potential 2020 presidential candidate even though he fell short in his Senate bid earlier this year,” Politico reports.

Said Trump: “I thought you were supposed to win before you run for president.”