Endorsement watch: Now that's what I call enthusiastic

Here's Shane Sklar getting endorsed by the Victoria Advocate.

"Dr. No" is a joke in Washington. At no time was this more obvious than in May 2004, when he was the lone House member to vote against a nonbinding resolution protesting the Vietnamese government's human rights abuses.

The House urged Hanoi to release a Roman Catholic priest who was detained three years earlier because he had written a report describing the lack of religious freedom in that country. Only Ron Paul voted no.

Retiring him from Congress for a third - and final - time is long overdue. Fortunately, voters in the 14th District have an intelligent, articulate, energetic, native Texan alternative to represent them in the House.

Shane Sklar was born in Victoria into a multigeneration Texas ranching family. Although he is only 30, the Edna resident has an impressive record of effective service in both the public and private sectors.

[...]

The young Democrat is as sensibly moderate as the Republican incumbent is wackily libertarian. Because of that, Sklar garnered endorsements from organizations across the ideological spectrum, from the conservative National Rifle Association to liberal teachers and other unions.

Economic development, agriculture, national security, health, energy, ethics and fiscal responsibility are issues Sklar believes are important. He knows, as his opponent does not, that reflexive no votes are not the right way to address these issues, either on a regional basis for the 14th District or on a national basis for the country as a whole.

We do not fully agree with Sklar on his approach to all the issues he has identified as important. But we agree with him on more than enough of them to believe he is a far better alternative than the incumbent.

More important, the young Edna rancher has demonstrated that he has the ability to think through issues carefully and making sensible, informed decisions that would benefit this part of Texas in concrete ways.

The 14th Congressional District needs to be represented by a real leader, not an ineffective ideologue.

Voters should bring Ron Paul home for the last time and send Shane Sklar to Congress to provide that much-needed real leadership.

Now that's what I'm talking about. More like this, please.

Elsewhere, Robert Ricketts gets a nice endorsement from the Star Telegram for CD19.

Ricketts, 45, is a certified public accountant with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in accounting. He teaches tax courses. He has an excellent grasp of the long-term funding crises facing the Social Security and Medicare programs and the need to reduce the heavy federal budget deficits of recent years. He favors a return to the responsible bipartisan tax-and-spending policies of the late 1990s that produced budget surpluses and reduced wasteful spending.

Ricketts, who lives just north of Lubbock, strongly favors developing alternative energy technologies such as wind power and raising federal fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles.

He wants to curb illegal immigration by developing a reliable system whereby employers could verify that job applicants have valid Social Security cards. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 failed because it wasn't enforced in the workplace, Ricketts said.

Put simply, Ricketts is a more impressive candidate than the incumbent, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, who has held the seat since 2003 and previously was a Lubbock developer. Neugebauer, 56, declined to meet with or be interviewed by the Star-Telegram Editorial Board.

CD19 is not high on my list of potentially competitive seats - frankly, if Charlie Stenholm couldn't hold it, there ain't much hope - but Ricketts has run a spirited campaign. Anyone who can do so in such unfriendly territory deserves respect.

The Statesman follows the lead of the Morning News and endorses Bill Moody for the Texas Supreme Court. They also join with the DMN in lamenting the lack of serious opposition to Court of Criminal Appeals jurist Sharon Keller.

Unfortunately, the Express News chose George Antuna over Joe Farias in HD118. They redeem themselves somewhat by slamming Kinky Friedman.

Kinky Friedman's gubernatorial candidacy is the mirror image of his musical career. He's a novelty act.

Like novelty songs, the one-liners are funny at first, but the Kinkster doesn't wear well on repeated listenings.

Take the away the edginess and the hipster veneer, and Friedman is just another Ray Stevens. Nobody is particularly interested in hearing Stevens sing "The Streak" again, and Friedman's stock phrases - such as "How hard can it be?" and "Why the hell not?" - have worn out their welcome, too.

Friedman's been repeating the same jokes for almost three years now. But hey, as long as people notice.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 16, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack