Pubdate: Sun, 03 Jun 2012
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2012 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/townhall/ci_14227323
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829

BETO: BUILD MOMENTUM FOR CONGRESS

Beto O'Rourke, the newly minted Democratic congressional nominee in El
Paso, has a bit of a balancing act to pull off between now and November.

He still must beat Republican Barbara Carrasco in the general
election, but that result in Democratic-dominant El Paso is a foregone
conclusion. No Republican congressional candidate has exceeded 37
percent of the vote in the past 14 years, and the GOP's high-water
mark in a presidential election year in that time is 31 percent.

In fact, thousands of Republican voters appear to have crossed over to
this year's Democratic primary, seeing that as their best chance to
oust eight-term incumbent Silvestre Reyes.

O'Rourke needs to maintain the contact with voters that was the key to
his success in Tuesday's primary, while at the same time preparing for
the inevitable transition to Washington. The upcoming campaign against
Carrasco offers O'Rourke a chance to do both, by using the campaign to
better outline his priorities once he takes office.

Many of those priorities played a role in O'Rourke's primary campaign
against Reyes -- improving veterans' health care in El Paso, building
the border economy by better facilitating legitimate international
commerce, and protecting the recent growth at Fort Bliss.

A campaign between O'Rourke and Carrasco also will facilitate a
much-needed conversation about how to grow the national economy in the
short term while also developing intermediate and long-range plans to
bring down the national debt.

In the primary, O'Rourke bravely ventured into ideas of reforming
entitlement spending to help control debt, but Reyes short-circuited
any chance for meaningful debate on this important issue by
essentially pulling out the old canard that supporters of entitlement
reform want to put your grandmother on an ice floe.

Carrasco made deficit reduction a focal point of her successful GOP
primary campaign against Cory Roen, so she and O'Rourke can probably
have a more honest and fruitful debate on these issues in the
generalelection.

O'Rourke also is uniquely positioned to lead a national conversation
about the nation's drug-control policies, particularly as they involve
Mexico. Though Reyes tried to focus the debate on O'Rourke's
controversial suggestion that the nation discuss legalizing marijuana,
O'Rourke put forward other ideas on drug-policy reform that deserve
attention.

For example, his claim that the Merida Initiative has largely failed
in its effort to curb Mexican cartels deserves more attention than it
has received. With a new Mexican president taking office later this
year, there almost certainly will be a change in U.S.-Mexico
drug-control policy.

O'Rourke is one of the few political figures even talking about this
issue. El Paso and Juarez have much at stake in the eventual outcome.

In our endorsements for the primary elections, the Times made it clear
that we believe O'Rourke was the best choice both in the Democratic
primary and in the general election. We have not wavered in that
stance. But the upcoming general election campaign offers O'Rourke a
chance to once again connect with voters and, perhaps more
importantly, better position himself on the national stage.

O'Rourke has vowed that he will serve no more than eight years in the
House. That self-imposed limitation is commendable, though it also
shortens the window for getting things done in an institution that
still runs largely on seniority.

But we have confidence that O'Rourke will accomplish much. He can use
the upcoming general election campaign to help himself enter Congress
with much momentum.
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MAP posted-by: Matt