In endorsing James Talarico, the Houston Chronicle used the following analogy:
If you want to understand why we recommend state Rep. James Talarico in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, you have to remember what it was like to be an Astros fan in 2014.
The team (Astros) was barreling toward its third straight 100-loss season. Seats were empty. Tickets were cheap. Only the most die-hard supporters were paying attention to the last-ros, disast-ros, best days were in the past-ros.
Fast-forward three years and a Houston Strong crowd packed Minute Maid Park, roaring through a five-hour slugfest as the Astros toppled the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series before going on to win the best of seven.
How did a perennial loser become a champion?
The answer, at least in baseball: The Astros did whatever it took to win.
Maybe they forgot, but the Astros are remembered for cheating and winning.
Chronicle Argument 1:
On that topic, the national data is clear: Moderate candidates, if they can make it out of primaries, enjoy a small but notable general election advantage over their more ideological counterparts. And Talarico, 36, is running as an inspiring yet pragmatic reformer.
Really, it must be a phenomenon that only applies to the Democrats because I look at the Republicans, and it is not the moderates that win. If that were the case, the most moderate, if you can call him that, is John Cornyn. So why is he struggling in his re-election campaign? He has the money.
I guess the Chronicle considers Trump a Moderate and Harris was a raving progressive.
Conclusion: It is a bullshit argument by the Chronicle.
Chronicle Argument 2:
Political scientists and baseball nerds alike call it “win above replacement” — how a candidate performs compared with a generic alternative. By that measure, moderates outperform progressives, according to Lakshya Jain, who analyzes data for The Argument. Plenty of Democrats balk at this argument, driven by understandable passion about an out-of-control White House to back candidates willing to throw bare-knuckle punches — rhetorical or otherwise. Voters disillusioned with their own party’s failures to defeat President Donald Trump see much to like in Crockett’s willingness to get just as crude and crass as our insulter-in-chief.
Conclusion: It is another bullshit argument.
The Chronicle used one person as the expert who moderates better. Do all experts agree with that assessment? Jain mentioned above;
Do moderate candidates perform better in general elections? Lakshya Jain and Harrison Lavelle of the political consulting firm Split Ticket say yes, “moderation is winning.”
This week, G. Elliott Morris, in his newsletter Strength in Numbers, published his own analysis of the WAR metric. It was a welcome piece of scrutiny, because we were in the middle of our own deep dive into the same question. It’s always a good sign when independent researchers digging into the same problem start to arrive at the same place. And our findings are very similar to his.
The takeaway from both analyses: the claim that moderation provides a major electoral boost is built on a statistical illusion. Split Ticket’s WAR isn’t the neutral measure of candidate skill it claims to be. It’s a biased metric, constructed in a way that makes moderates look good and progressives look bad.
Conclusion: Another bullshit argument from the Houston Chronicle. What the Chronicle is doing is seeking support for a conclusion they’ve already reached, likely by focusing only on the candidate’s skin color.
In three major races in Harris County, the Chronicle has chosen the white candidate three times: US Senate, County Judge, and County Attorney.
Chronicle Argument 3:
But Democrats are at risk of letting a potential wave year go to waste. O’Rourke lost by just three points in 2018. A few thousand voters on the margins might decide whether President Donald Trump gets another two years to reshape the federal judiciary with his hand-picked choices.
Talarico offers Democrats their best chance to change direction — because he’s running a campaign that starts from an unblinking assessment of political reality. Texas is a red state. Any Democrat who wins statewide will have to persuade at least some Republicans to cross over.
Conclusion: Another bullshit argument, Beto O’Rourke was no moderate, and he managed to win Republicans over and came the closest to winning a statewide campaign.
My Take on the race:
Talarico has already done irreparable harm to Democrats with either his stupidity or his racism. How many of the Houston editorial staff who made the decision have ever walked in the shoes of a Black man who overcame the odds to succeed?
Collin Allred did that, but Talarico saw no problem in suggesting he was mediocre. Prior to that, Talrico’s argument about electability rang of racism to me. He has never explained why he would be more electable, is it because he is white? There may have been a time when I would have believed it, but Obama proved that a Black Man can win without changing the color of his skin. Back in the not-too-distant past, white candidates would send photos of themselves and their opponents to white households. That was blatant racism, and Talarico has a lot of explaining to do. Because I do believe that he has pissed off the Black community. Enough for them to skip voting in that election, I don’t know, but certainly possible.
The Houston Editorial Board
