Houston Chronicle: For U.S. Senate: Beto O'Rourke

It's always an embarrassment for a state wide political candidate to have their hometown newspaper endorse and out of town opponent.  Yet that's what has happened to Ted Cruz who the same paper had endorsed when he last ran for the U.S. Senate.  Having seen the real Ted Cruz in action, the Houston Chronicle - which has a history of endorsing Republicans - endorsed Beto O'Rourke for the Senate race, trashing Cruz in the process.  Houston is part of the growing "blue" urban base for Democrats in Texas which to date, unlike what has happened in Virginia, still lacks enough votes to out vote the reactionary, racist rural areas of Texas. The Chronicle's main complaint: Cruz has not been representing the interests of Texas or average Texans.  Instead he has been on a quest of running for president and ignoring his duties.  Here are editorial highlights:

With eyes clear but certainly not starry, we 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. Despite the long odds he faces – pollster nonpareil Nate Silver gives O'Rourke a 20 percent chance of winning – a "Beto" victory would be good for Texas, not only because of his skills, both personal and political, but also because of the manifest inadequacies of the man he would replace.

Ted Cruz — a candidate the Chronicle endorsed in 2012, by the way — 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 — more likely since he picked up his class schedule as a 15-year-old ninth-grader at Houston's Second Baptist High School more than three decades ago. For Cruz, public office is a private quest; the needs of his constituents are secondary.

It was the rookie Cruz, riding high after a double-digit win in 2012, 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.

Cruz's very first vote as senator was a "nay" on the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, a bill authorizing $60 billion for relief agencies working to address the needs of Hurricane Sandy victims. More than a few of Cruz's congressional colleagues reminded him of that vote when he came seeking support for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

Voters don't send representatives to Washington to win popularity contests, and yet the bipartisan disdain the Republican incumbent elicits from his colleagues, remarkable in its intensity, deserves noting. His repellent personality hamstrings his ability to do the job.

"Lucifer in the flesh," is how Republican former House Speaker John Boehner described Cruz, adding: "I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who was adept at tending to Texan needs and who worked tirelessly on the state's behalf, once reminded the Chronicle editorial board that Cruz would have to decide where his loyalties lay when he got to Washington: with fellow Texans or fellow obstructionist ideologues. Six years later, it's obvious he's decided.

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.

What sets O'Rourke apart, aside from the remarkable campaign he's running, are policy positions in keeping with a candidate duly aware of the traditionally conservative Texas voter he would be representing in the U.S. Senate. Representing a congressional district that includes Fort Bliss and numerous military retirees, he has focused on improving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, with special attention to mental health. He's a strong believer in free trade and global markets, an economic position that should appeal to pragmatic Houston business interests.

As a lifelong border resident, O'Rourke supports our trade ties with Mexico and our need to sustain and encourage those ties (despite the anti-Mexican malice that emanates from the White House).

"While he may look like the second coming of Bobby Kennedy to D.C. pundits," political scientist Jay Aiyer of Texas Southern University has written, "Texans can see that O'Rourke has more in common with the politics and approach of former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, who advocated for modernizing Texas through bipartisan cooperation during his time leading the Texas Senate."

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.

[I]magine how refreshing it would be to have a U.S. senator who not only knows the issues but respects the opposition, who takes firm positions but reaches out to those who disagree, who expects to make government work for Texas and the nation. Beto O'Rourke, we believe, is that senator.

Houston Chronicle Endorses Hillary Clinton

In a lengthy and stunning early endorsement, the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper of record in Texas' largest city endorsed Hillary Clinton.  The editorial containing the endorsement lays out the case why any sane individual should be voting for Clinton as opposed to her extreme and dangerous opponent, Donald Trump.  As the editorial notes, Trump represents a danger to the nation and the thought of him possessing the nuclear codes ought to terrify anyone who is rational.  Hillary may not be one's ideal candidate, but given the frightening nature of Trump, there really is no other responsible thing to do but vote for Hillary in November.  Here are editorial excerpts:

On Nov. 8, 2016, the American people will decide between two presidential contenders who represent the starkest political choice in living memory. They will choose between one candidate with vast experience and a lifelong dedication to public service and another totally lacking in qualifications to be president. They will decide whether they prefer someone deeply familiar with the issues that are important to this nation or a person whose paper-thin, bumper-sticker proposals would be dangerous to the nation and the world if somehow they were enacted.

The Chronicle editorial page does not typically endorse early in an election cycle; we prefer waiting for the campaign to play out and for issues to emerge and be addressed. We make an exception in the 2016 presidential race, because the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is not merely political. It is something much more basic than party preference.

Any one of Trump's less-than-sterling qualities - his erratic temperament, his dodgy business practices, his racism, his Putin-like strongman inclinations and faux-populist demagoguery, his contempt for the rule of law, his ignorance - is enough to be disqualifying. His convention-speech comment, "I alone can fix it," should make every American shudder. He is, we believe, a danger to the Republic.

It's telling that so many Republicans have distanced themselves from their party's nominee. That sizeable list includes a number of prominent Texans, Bush family members foremost among them, as well as Sen. Cruz and House Speaker Joe Straus. These stalwart Republicans are concerned not only about the future of their party (and, with the exception of the two Bush presidents, their own political careers), but, more important, they're concerned about the future of this nation.

It would not be surprising to discover that these experienced politicians and public servants share the existential concern that first lady Michelle Obama raised in her powerful speech on behalf of Clinton at the party convention in Philadelphia: "Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can't make snap decisions. You can't have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed."

Whether voters like her personally is almost irrelevant at this "moment of reckoning," to use Clinton's words. She herself concedes that she's not a natural campaigner. She lacks Obama's oratorical gifts or her husband's folksy ability to connect with crowds. Too often she comes across as calculated, inauthentic. We're confident that she is, indeed, "steady and measured and well-informed" and that she would be a much better president than a presidential candidate.

On the issues, there's no comparison in terms of thoughtfulness, thoroughness and practicality. Acknowledging the influence of erstwhile competitor Bernie Sanders, for example, she will focus as president on repairing an economy that has left many working people behind and struggling. She will address income inequality and wage stagnation and will work to create jobs. She'll work with Congress to end tax loopholes, noting as she did on CBS's "Sixty Minutes" last weekend that an executive shouldn't be paying the same tax rate as his secretary. She also will push for equal pay for women, increasing the minimum wage and expanding tax credits for poorer families.

Rejecting the ridiculous border-wall notion her opponent famously touts, she'll push for comprehensive immigration reform, building on a sensible plan that passed the U.S. Senate three years ago, only to be held hostage by a rump group of tea-party opponents in the House. She has said she intends within the first 100 days of her administration to introduce a path for the undocumented among us to earn citizenship.

As first lady in the White House a few years later, her failed health initiative led to the creation of CHIP, the immensely successful children's health insurance program. She will work to improve the Affordable Care Act, not abolish it.

On trade, another vital Houston issue, we have our differences with the Democrat. Although she now says she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal we support, we're confident she will be adept at negotiating deals that would grow wages and jobs and that would protect American workers. Despite his vaunted deal-making claims, her opponent, we suspect, would be lost at sea trying to meet the nation's trade goals.

On foreign affairs, the former secretary of state is knowledgeable, dependable and trusted worldwide, unlike her blusterous opponent whose outrageous remarks last week about Russia were merely the most recent bizarre outburst to unsettle our allies. Needless to say, Clinton supports NATO, unlike Trump who, in the words of columnist Timothy Egan, "now stands ready to repudiate nearly 70 years of security for our European allies under an 'America First' banner. ."

We could go on with issues, including her plans for sensible gun safety and for combating terrorism - her policy positions are laid out in detail on her campaign web site - but issues in this election are almost secondary to questions of character and trustworthiness. We reject the "cartoon version" of Hillary Clinton (again to borrow her husband's phrase) in favor of a presidential candidate who has the temperament, the ability and the experience to lead this nation.

These are unsettling times, even if they're not the dark, dystopian end times that Trump lays out. They require a steady hand. That's not Donald Trump.

The times also require a person who envisions a hopeful future for this nation, a person who has faith in the strong, prosperous and confident America we hope to bequeath our children and grandchildren, as first lady Michelle Obama so eloquently envisioned in Philadelphia. That's not Donald Trump's America.

 Perhaps there is hope for Texas after all.