Speculation over whether Rep. Beto O’Rourke should run for president began early in his campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz, and has only intensified since his nail-bitingly close defeat last month.

So far, that debate has focused on the wrong things. Commentators have seized on O’Rourke’s charisma and ability to draw and inspire large crowds. But what about the actual policies his Senate race was built on? Understanding these core beliefs will give us a much better measure of the value an O’Rourke candidacy would add to the race for the Democratic nomination for president.

Notably, the El Paso representative campaigned on an ambitious criminal justice reform agenda. He advocated for abolishing private, for-profit prisons, legalizing marijuana and ending the war on drugs — ideas he has championed since before being elected to Congress six years ago. In his run for Senate, he also campaigned on eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, ending the use of bail bonds that criminalize poverty and for more housing and job-search support for former inmates as they transition out of prison and back into their communities. Although he wouldn’t be the first or the only candidate to support such ideas, O’Rourke’s candidacy could ensure that criminal justice reform is high on the 2020 Democratic agenda.

O’Rourke also took an important step toward getting corporate money out of politics: He rejected corporate PAC contributions. The choice of whether to take PAC money is likely to be a central issue in the primary. Were he to run, O’Rourke would be one of the earliest candidates to have refused corporate PAC money, helping to set a standard for the Democratic field.

And O’Rourke campaigned passionately on Medicare for all. On the trail, he expressed exasperation with piecemeal solutions, telling o ne audience , “I’m beyond the meaningless, ‘let’s work in a bipartisan way to fix [the Affordable Care Act] where it’s not working.’” O’Rourke also demonstrated his fluency with the details of competing Medicare expansion proposals, explaining that he did not support a House version because it does not reimburse for-profit hospitals, and instead supported Bernie Sanders’ Senate proposal , which does.

These are a few examples. A longer discussion of O’Rourke’s record would note his unique ability to talk about immigration, having grown up and lived in the border city of El Paso, which he represented in Congress for three terms. These roots have helped O’Rourke succinctly rebut Donald Trump’s fearmongering, observing, “El Paso is one of the safest cities in the United States due in large part to our immigrant population, not in spite of it.”

While plenty of pundits have compared O’Rourke to President Obama on the basis of their charisma, rhetoric and appeal to younger voters, those comparisons don’t always extend to policy. O’Rourke took many stances contrary to the Obama administration, including opposition to arming Syria’s rebels . He also called the use of force in Libya a “factor in the destabilization of the Middle East and the rise of ISIS,” and opposed National Security Agency surveillance that occurred on Obama’s watch.

Of course, none of this resolves serious concerns about some of O’Rourke’s positions, as raised by journalist Zaid Jilani , columnist Elizabeth Bruenig and others. And we should heed journalist Jill Filipovic’s call to “examine the assumptions and biases that give us Beto-mania while conveniently ignoring or actively kneecapping the great many competent, talented, progressive women who could be just as exciting.”

Still, O’Rourke campaigned on actual policies and principles — not just rhetoric and charisma. He’s not the only candidate among the likely 2020 Democratic field to champion these policies, but O’Rourke has consistently and successfully raised the profile of these issues. He also proved he had the political courage to do so unabashedly in all 254 counties of Texas. As a presidential candidate, O’Rourke would rightly ensure that criminal justice reform, campaign finance reform and Medicare for everyone are prioritized by the Democratic Party. Perhaps most intriguing of all, O’Rourke could amplify the debate on ending the failed war on drugs in a field of former prosecutors and supporters of that war.

Inspirational rhetoric alone will not defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Democrats need ideas and solutions that people care about. Whether you are making the case for or against O’Rourke — or any candidate, really — let’s focus less on rhetoric and more on an actual vision and platform for our future.

Freeland is an attorney and Democratic activist. You can follow him on Twitter at @policyjunkie.