These are unsettling times that require a steady hand, and that’s Hillary Clinton
There are literally as many as 100 languages spoken in Houston. Demographers also believe that as many as 1 in 4 residents of Harris County were born abroad. Clearly, we are one of the most diverse cities in America. While English is our unifying voice, many of our new neighbors are more proficient in other tongues. On these pages this summer, the Chronicle editorial board endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This was based on her experience, ideas and positions on issues of importance to Southeast Texas. The presidential campaign also has been dominated by contemptuousness and intolerance of recent immigrants. We therefore found it civically vital to reprint a condensed version of our recommendation in four languages that are widely spoken here — Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.
On Nov. 8, the American people will decide between two presidential contenders who represent the starkest political choice in living memory. They will choose between one candidate with vast experience and a lifelong dedication to public service and another totally lacking in qualifications to be president. They will decide whether they prefer someone deeply familiar with the issues that are important to this nation or a person whose paper-thin, ill-conceived, bumper-sticker proposals would be dangerous to the nation and the world if somehow they were enacted.
Any one of Donald Trump’s less-than-sterling qualities — his erratic temperament, his dodgy business practices, his racism, his Putin-like strongman inclinations and faux-populist demagoguery, his contempt for the rule of law, his ignorance — is enough to be disqualifying. His convention-speech comment, “I alone can fix it,” should make every American shudder. He is, we believe, a danger to the republic.
On the other hand, Americans know Hillary Clinton. After her quarter century and more in the public eye, they know her strengths and her weaknesses. Anyone who has paid even a modicum of attention to her experience as first lady, as U.S. senator, as secretary of state and as candidate for president will have at least a general notion of her positions on the issues. As President Obama noted, she’s the most qualified person in years to serve as president —“and that includes Bill and me.”
Whether voters like her personally is almost irrelevant at this “moment of reckoning,” to use Clinton’s words. She herself concedes that she’s not a natural campaigner. She lacks Obama’s oratorical gifts or her husband’s folksy ability to connect with crowds. We’re confident that she is, indeed, “steady and measured and well-informed,” to quote
Michelle Obama, and that she would be a much better president than a presidential candidate.
On the issues, as the debates have proved, there’s no comparison in terms of thoughtfulness, thoroughness and practicality. Acknowledging the influence of erstwhile competitor Bernie Sanders, for example, she will focus as president on repairing an economy that has left many working people behind and struggling. She will address income inequality and wage stagnation and will work to create jobs. She’ll work with Congress to end tax loopholes (including, presumably, the loophole that allowed Trump to claim nearly a billion-dollar loss). She also will push for equal pay for women, increasing the minimum wage and expanding tax credits for families.
Rejecting the ridiculous border-wall notion her opponent famously touts, Clinton supports comprehensive immigration re- form, building on a sensible plan the U.S. Senate passed in 2013. She has said she intends within the first 100 days of her administration to introduce a path for the undocumented among us to earn citizenship.
On foreign affairs, the former secretary of state is knowledgeable, dependable and trusted worldwide, unlike her blusterous opponent whose bizarre support of Vladimir Putin, rash remarks about nuclear weapons and ignorant comments about NATO have unsettled our allies. We could go on with issues, but issues in this election are almost secondary to questions of character and trustworthiness.
America’s first female president would be in the Oval Office more than a century and a half after a determined group of women launched the women’s suffrage movement, almost a century after women in this country won the right to vote. It’s a milestone, to be sure. Few could have imagined it would be so consequential.