The editorial board at the Houston Chronicle fortunately has little patience for political snake oil dealers, charlatans, hypocrites, fork tongued liars and narcissistic demagogues. At least this is the case when a major and one of the most diverse U.S. city's major newspaper has to hold on to its standing in the credibility department.
It is helpful to know that when an elected official blatantly abdicates his duties and responsibilities on behalf of those whom he supposed to serve in order to serve himself instead, that the press and the mainstream media will expose him.
Open Secret.
Ted Cruz has every right, as best we can tell, to run for president, even though he was born in Canada to a Cuban father. We're happy he's the first of several potential candidates with Texas ties. We're not so happy about his disdain for 30 million Texans he was elected to represent just a couple of years ago. It's no secret that he's been running for president since the day he was elected - or maybe since he was a 15-year-old memorizing the U.S. Constitution at Houston's Second Baptist High School. But his declared candidacy in 2012 was for the Senate, not the White House.
It is true that Ted Cruz has done squat for the Texans he was elected to represent other than to bring shame, humiliation and embarrassment to all of us who didn't vote for him. And that would be many of us since few of us vote in Texas.
It's all about Ted.
Cruz will argue in his inimitable impassioned way that he'll still be representing the interests of the Lone Star State. But it's hard to imagine - to borrow the signature word from Cruz's Liberty University announcement Monday - that Texas will be paramount, except as a reliable source of campaign cash. Trade, NASA, hurricane protection, immigration, education, energy policy, federal judgeships and a host of other issues important to Texans will have, at best, the senator's distracted attention.
The editorial board draws a sharp contrast between the work of former U.S. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and her successor, Ted Cruz.
His absence will hardly be noticed. Unlike Kay Bailey Hutchison, his predecessor in the Senate, Cruz isn't in Washington to get things done for his state. He's not there to govern. He sees himself as an agitator, a disruptive force who disdains crafting solutions to problems or compromising with his colleagues toward a pragmatic end. He's made a lot of noise during his time in Washington, but except for partially shutting down the federal government in 2013, it's hard to point to much of anything Cruz has done.
The editorial board is also correct in pointing out that Ted Cruz is no different from his Republican presidential opponents on the hard right. But I part ways with the Chronicle's belief that unlike the Ted Cruz hard right, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio will be more open to discussions about immigration, climate change, marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act.
Sure. The three more "moderate" Republican might be more open to such discussions but in the end all are Republicans that support the usual. Trickle down economics, i.e. tax cuts for the rich.
But I’m partial to a more cynical explanation. Think about what these budgets would do if you ignore the mysterious trillions in unspecified spending cuts and revenue enhancements. What you’re left with is huge transfers of income from the poor and the working class, who would see severe benefit cuts, to the rich, who would see big tax cuts. And the simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer.
Any Republican discussions about immigration reform will be focused on how such can best benefit the 1%, no doubt.
The Houston Chronicle's editorial board stated that it will look to Ted Cruz's senior colleague, John Cornyn, to address the needs of Texas.
Cruz's dogmatic certainty plays well among movement conservatives and tea party Republicans who make up the base of his support. But unless he can capture the support of the larger share of the electorate, which he will need to win the Republican nomination, he may win a few primaries, but he won't get the nomination. We'll be watching to see whether there's any campaign-trail calibration on the part of this adept politician, even as we look to his senior colleague, John Cornyn, to address Texas-related needs.
Let's not hold our breath, Texas.
John Cornyn isn't that into us. He's too busy inserting poison pills into bills and playing politics as usual in Washington D.C. Texans essentially have no representation in Washington, D.C. at least not in the Senate.
It might be a good idea to vote next time.