The Chron finally corrects an old and egregious error.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke
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. Cruz’s Texas cohort, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, was effective in those efforts; the junior senator was not.
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.”
I never understood why the Chron thought it was a good idea to endorse Cruz in 2012, something that other major papers did not do. I thought it was clear at the time that he would never be anything like the Senator he was succeeding, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and I couldn’t fathom how it was they didn’t see him for what he was. Better late than never, I guess.
Over the weekend, the Chron dumped a massive number of endorsements in the remaining races. I’ll try to highlight and summarize the ones of interest over the rest of this week. They skipped State Rep races in which the incumbent was unopposed, in case you’re wondering about that.
Just when I thought the Houston Comical was on the ropes, they come up with this gem, “…because of the manifest inadequacies of the man he would replace (Cruz).” “His (Cruz’s) repellent personality hamstrings his ability to do the job.”
As far as the first descriptor goes, same could be said for Culberson.
Nail on head.
While I salute the Chron for acknowledging they endorsed Cruz in 2012, I wish they’d addressed just how hilariously wrong their reasoning turned out to be.
“Cruz doesn’t mean his rhetoric and he’ll really be a KBH style productive pragmatist” is up there with “Everything that can be invented has already been invented” in the annals of bad prognostications.