Three-Point Shots, Vol. 2, No. 13: October 18, 2024
The Allred-Cruz debate, the real story behind cracking down on immigrant labor, and the sad fortunes of the Dallas Cowboys.
Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.
But first, your moment of Zen … Another photo of the comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), taken Monday, October 14, 2024, outside Marathon, Texas.
Friday, October 18, 2024
1. Thoughts on the Allred-Cruz Debate
Colin Allred starts with a disadvantage: he’s running for Senate in one of the most conservative states in the Union. It has forced him to shy away from more liberal parts of the Democratic agenda and, to be fair, of his own record. Instead, he’s tacked to the middle, as, for example, on immigration.
Cruz went into the debate with a different handicap: he has built his senatorial career on extremist culture war rhetoric – condemning “trans” athletes, (even when they are not “trans”); hysteria about the border; a hard line on abortion rights. He’s also built a reputation as the most obnoxiously insufferable public figure in America, and that’s saying something.
Tuesday night, both came out swinging. Cruz justified his reputation as the high school debating champ from hell, while Allred came across as more … human. Both practiced the longtime debate arts of ignoring the questions they’d been asked and talking to the audience at home instead of the moderators. And both were a little fuzzy with the facts. Overall, though, Allred appealed to the middle with his arguments while Cruz played to his MAGA base.
Neither scored the knockout blow that’s likely to change the trajectory of the election. That’s bad for Allred: the RCP average shows Cruz with a 49.5%-45% advantage.
2. Tolerating Illegal Immigration is a Texas Priority
A long, well-researched article in Texas Monthly discusses the hypocrisy at the center of official Texas’s attitude to immigration. TL;DR: The Texas economy, for better or worse, depends on undocumented workers, particularly in the construction sector. Meanwhile, Republican government leaders excoriate migrants and create Operation Lone Star as a sop to their anti-immigrant base, but do little nothing to punish businesses who use undocumented labor. From the article:
Cutting off the supply of undocumented workers, then, would be like cutting off the supply of concrete and lumber. Far fewer homes and businesses would be built in the next few decades. It would push up the prices paid by those who buy homes and office buildings. So an inviolable relationship has developed between new construction and migrants: If you build, they will come.
Whenever Texas politicians threaten to pass laws that would make it harder for businesses to employ undocumented workers, phones in the Capitol start ringing. Stuck with the need to show their base that they’re cracking down on migrants, politicians, including Abbott, have instead found a middle ground: They keep up their bombast regarding the border, but they avoid stringing any razor wire between undocumented immigrants and jobs in the state’s interior.
3. Ford Is the … Best in Texas?
I have never been a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. My first memories of high stakes, high-emotion football were the league championship games between Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers and Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys in the late 1960s. My father was born and raised in Milwaukee, and so he had definite opinions on the matter, which he passed on to his son.
But I did not become an active Dallas Cowboys hater until the ascendancy of Jerry Jones and all the solipsistic swagger that came with him.
And now comes this commercial for Ford encouraging viewers to “experience unmatched power and performance like your Dallas Cowboys.” I assume Ford paid the Cowboys for its promotional relationship (“official vehicle of the Dallas Cowboys”), but after the 47-9 drubbing the Detroit Lions handed the Pokes last Sunday, it may want to ask for its money back.
Weekend Reading … As Halloween approaches, here’s something to scare your pants off: Under a Second Trump Administration, America Could Look a Lot Like Texas
"I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz."
Al Franken
"obnoxiously insufferable" indeed ...