For example, if you examined the brilliant correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and that level of dialogue between the Federalists and Founding Fathers of the United States, how does this compare to the level of dialogue possible on Editorial pages between people who don't read editorial pages and don't really care what anyone else thinks, the folks who are content to click "Like" on Facebook as if that were the new high standard for meaningful support for a political candidate?
I still believe that there are many disenfranchised Americans who do have plenty to say, but where can they say it? Preach to the choir in a Facebook group wherein almost everyone already agrees on a given subject? Or put out a viewpoint in another Facebook group wherein you already know that NOBODY agrees, and within a few hours, the comments will be more like snarling dogs behind a junk yard wire fence.
However, in retrospect, the merits of efforts to record political sentiments on editorial pages in any election are completely clear; the writer coalesces political power in a personal testimonial that has a multiplier effect, even if it is only 150 words long. Furthermore, the editorial page editors reading these letters are in due course usually the people writing the endorsements for candidates in late October and early November.
I believe that such an effort could be coupled into every single campaign in every state, with great positive benefits. To ignore such an obviously beneficial tactic is essentially to ignore the power of the editorial page and also power of the individual person's opinion. In the rest of the time before the midterms, I encourage the reader to write their own letters to the editor in various races, and certainly, in the 2020 election warmup, we really need to pin this down in every actionable election across the USA.
Beto and his campaign staff have organized Facebook groups magnificently, and in small towns, Beto groups have sprouted up like blue bonnets in the spring.
I joined a few and in the process ran into someone I remembered from 9th grade in Illinois at Eastern Illinois University Laboratory School, Jan Higgins Adam, the organizer for a group, Katy for Beto O'Rourke; she also manages Harris County Democratic Precinct 899. I saw several of her letters to the editor, but particularly poignant and compelling to me was a piece she did related to immigration and one student she taught:
I've stayed in touch with one of my students who applied to be a dreamer. He came here at 10 years of age. Both parents were sick at one point and he was the sole support for the family. But he persevered and earned an engineering degree from the University of Houston. He was working full time, supporting his family including helping a sibling go to school and the bottom fell out of his life. Trump was elected and soon his DACA legal status certainty disappeared. He's gone quiet and I haven't heard from him for many months.The last time I talked to him, his depression was obvious. But the related immigration issue that disturbs me the most is the taking of young children from their parents at the border, the drugging of these children, the lack of knowing the whereabouts and safety of young girls, and now the continued incarceration of children with their families because they wanted the safety of what they thought was the greatest and safest country in the world. When we traveled to Brownsville as concerned Americans-many of us mothers and grandmothers, we could get no access to the courts and the children were kept in seclusion. This is not the country of Lady Liberty.
>>>>>>
Some Republicans are abandoning Cruz; one conservative columnist from the New York Times called him a "serpent covered in Vaseline"
From the Newsweek article by TIM MARCIN 9/25/18
Bret Stephens--a conservative opinion writer for the New York Times--doesn't like Ted Cruz, not at all. In his opinion piece for the Times last Tuesday that was stylized as a back-and-forth conversation between him and her Gail Collins. Stephens said he liked Beto but that the big reason he wanted to chat about the Senate race was because he despises Ted Cruz--"That is 'D-e-s-p-i-s-e,' in case I haven't spelled out my loathing clearly enough," he wrote, and then Gail Collins egged him on, so Stephens went for it, to wit:
"Because he's like a serpent covered in Vaseline. Because he treats the American people like two-bit suckers in 10-gallon hats. Because he sucks up to the guy who insulted his wife -- by retweet, no less. Because of his phony piety and even phonier principles. Because I see him as the spiritual love child of the 1980s televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining."Because his ethics are purely situational. Because he makes Donald Trump look like a human being by comparison. Because "New York values." Because his fellow politicians detest him, and that's just among Republicans. Because he never got over being the smartest kid in eighth grade. Because he's conniving enough to try to put one over you, but not perceptive enough to realize that you see right through him. Because he's the type of man who would sell his family into slavery if that's what it took to get elected. And that he would use said slavery as a sob story to get himself re-elected. Otherwise, you might say I'm his No. 1 fan."
Recently, Cruz got chased out of a D.C. restaurant by people protesting his friendship with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Cruz replied to the protesters, "God bless you" and walked out.
During his first Senate term, Cruz became a national figure and ran for president in 2016. President Donald Trump attacked the senator personally, suggesting Cruz's father helped kill President John F. Kennedy and taking a cheap-shot at his wife's appearance, yet, inexplicably Cruz still is a Trump supporter. (To be such a Trump sycophant: is that purely deranged on Cruz' part, or is it some kind of self-serving political masochism?)
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