{"id":33181,"date":"2018-10-30T20:41:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33181"},"modified":"2018-10-30T20:41:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:41:43","slug":"orourke-attack-on-cruz-carries-an-implied-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33181","title":{"rendered":"O’Rourke attack on Cruz carries an implied promise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Beto O’Rourke has gone negative as his campaign against Ted Cruz heads down the stretch. The Democratic challenger wants to succeed the Republican incumbent in the U.S. Senate seat representing Texas.<\/p>\n

O’Rourke hasn’t been nasty the way some candidates around the country have become.<\/p>\n

I want to look briefly at one TV ad that’s getting a lot of air time in the final days of the midterm election campaign.<\/p>\n

Beto says Cruz missed 25 percent of his Senate votes in 2015 and half<\/em> of them in 2016. Why? Because Cruz was seeking the Republican nomination for president of the United States.<\/p>\n

O’Rourke then asks rhetorically whether “your employer” would keep you on the job if you missed that much work. Good question. He makes a valid point.<\/p>\n

Let me suggest, though, that Cruz was within his right to run for president. It’s always a gamble for an incumbent officeholder to campaign full-time for the nation’s highest office, given the amount of time he or she must spend away from the job for which he is being paid; in Cruz’s case, Texans and other Americans are shelling out $175,000 annually for representation in the U.S. Senate. That ain’t chump change, man.<\/p>\n

Cruz and other incumbent officeholders need to be mindful of the job they don’t have time to do while they seek higher office.<\/p>\n

O’Rourke’s complaint about Cruz’s absenteeism does suggest something else. It suggests to me that if O’Rourke wins the Senate seat next week and takes office next January, he is going to commit full time for the entire length<\/em> of his Senate term to serving Texans and their needs.<\/p>\n

As I understand it, O’Rourke already has made such a pledge on the stump as he campaigns around the state. Sen. Cruz hasn’t done so.<\/p>\n

Hmm. I want my<\/em> U.S. senator to be on the job all the time<\/em> on my behalf.<\/p>\n

Yep. I’m still with Beto.<\/p>\n\n

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Beto O’Rourke has gone negative as his campaign against Ted Cruz heads down the stretch. The Democratic challenger wants to succeed the Republican incumbent in the U.S. Senate seat representing Texas. O’Rourke hasn’t been nasty the way some candidates around the country have become. I want to look briefly at one TV ad that’s getting … Continue reading O’Rourke attack on Cruz carries an implied promise<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[7490,7043,7576,4537,5051],"class_list":["post-33181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-2018-election","tag-beto-orourke","tag-midterm-election","tag-ted-cruz","tag-us-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33182,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181\/revisions\/33182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}