Today, the Houston Chronicle resoundingly endorsed Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso) for the U.S. Senate while condemning Sen. Ted Cruz (R-himself) for his horrible performance at satisfying length. And with yesterday’s endorsement of Beto by the Longview News-Journal — Longview is in TX-01, the seat that Louie Gohmert (R-Tea Party) has occupied since the 2004 election — a pattern of contrasts has begun to emerge.
Both endorsements are clearly based in part on respect for Beto and his efforts meeting with and working on behalf of his constituents since he was elected in 2012 to represent TX-16. The Longview News-Journal ‘s praise for Beto is unequivocal:
[Beto’s] ideas are not at all out of the mainstream. He wants to find a path to affordable health care for all, he wants to save the Dreamers and he wants constitutional rights to be available to all Americans.
These ideas are not radical and neither is O’Rourke. He deserves your vote.
And the Houston Chronicle awarded Beto 4 ½ out of 5 stars, while giving Cruz just 2:
{W]e enthusiastically endorse Beto O'Rourke for U.S. Senate. The West Texas congressman's command of issues that matter to this state, his unaffected eloquence and his eagerness to reach out to all Texans make him one of the most impressive candidates this editorial board has encountered in many years….
Cruz's challenger is running as an unapologetic progressive. He supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a solution to the Dreamer dilemma; health care for all; an end to the war on drugs (including legalizing marijuana); sensible (and constitutional) gun control, and other issues that place him in the Democratic mainstream this political season.
…. He opposes Trump's wall, not only because it's an absurd and colossal waste, but also because he objects to the government's use of eminent domain.
They also praise Beto’s efforts and positions on other equally important issues. But they don’t stop there.
Both endorsements slam Cruz for focusing more on his presidential aspirations than on representing Texans in the U.S. Senate. As the Longview News-Journal put it,
[Cruz] might as well have been a senator from Iowa, considering how much time he spent in that early caucus state.
What he did not do is represent Texas. He passed no legislation of significance, he did not use his leverage to help Texas and unless there were television cameras around, he was likely to be AWOL and unavailable to real Texans.
www.news-journal.com/...
LOL The Houston Chronicle is clearly fed up with Ted as well:
Ted Cruz ... is the junior senator from Texas in name only. Exhibiting little interest in addressing the needs of his fellow Texans during his six years in office, he has kept his eyes on a higher prize. He's been running for president since he took the oath of office…. For Cruz, public office is a private quest; the needs of his constituents are secondary.
Both newspapers also condemn Cruz for alienating his colleagues to such an extent that he’s ineffective in the Senate, but the Houston Chronicle actually quotes former House Speaker John Boehner, who called him “Lucifer in the flesh” and a “miserable son of a bitch,” as well as Senator Lindsay Graham’s scathing indictment: “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” (Those appraisals by Cruz’s fellow Republicans never get old!)
Then, the Houston Chronicle excoriates Cruz for his numerous failings:
It was the rookie Cruz ... who brazenly took the lead in a 2013 federal government shutdown, an exercise in self-aggrandizement that he hoped would lead to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Cruz, instead, undercut the economy, cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion (and inflicted his reading of Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" on an unamused nation). Maybe the senator succeeded in cementing in his obstructionist tea party bona fides, but we don't recall Texans clamoring for such an ill-considered, self-serving stunt.
They also indict Cruz because his loyalties during his 6 years in the senate have been with his “fellow obstructionist ideologues,” rather than with the Texans he was elected to represent. There’s much more, so I hope that you’ll click through to read their full endorsement at www.houstonchronicle.com/...
I want to leave you, though, with part of the Houston Chronicle’s concluding argument:
There's one more reason O'Rourke should represent Texas in the U.S. Senate: He would help to serve as a check on a president who is a danger to the republic. Cruz is unwilling to take on that responsibility. Indeed, the man who delighted in calling the Texas senator "Lyin' Ted" all through the 2016 presidential campaign, who insulted Cruz's wife and his father, is bringing his traveling campaign medicine show to Houston next week to buoy the Cruz campaign. The hyperbole, the hypocrisy and the rancorous hot air just might blow the roof off the Toyota Center.
Indeed. I don’t have anything to add to that.
Sign up to volunteer for Beto’s campaign at BetoForTexas.com
Important dates:
Monday, October 22 – Friday, November 2: Early Voting in Texas (more info at VoteTexas.gov)
Tuesday, November 6 between 7:00am — 7:00pm: Election Day voting