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At their best, our 2004 endorsements take a stand, but invite readers to agree or disagree with their reasoning
By Louis Black, Fri., Oct. 29, 2004
In this context, I considered our endorsements. The best of them, though supporting a candidate or issue, provide our reasoning in such a way as to invite the reader to agree or disagree. I was feeling good about this until I realized we printed the most complete version only once, the week that early voting began. After that, you either saved that issue or had to go online to read more than a list of our endorsements. The many wonderful insights I had planned on offering this week paled. Instead, we are running The Austin Chronicle editorial board's endorsements in full.
One quick note on commuter rail: Ignore the numbers and projections for the next couple of decades. Rail works when the alternative is gridlock, and succeeds because of convenience, not ideology. Sooner rather than later, it will be impossible to get around in central Austin. If, as anti-rail activist Jim Skaggs believes will be the case, effective alternative means of mass transit are developed by then, rail will be abandoned. But if not, when gridlock is the norm and the costs of then building a mass transit system beyond prohibitive, Capital Metro's vision will prove to have been prescient rather than utopian. It seems to me that, rather than gambling on the deus ex machina of new technologies, this is the best way to serve our community into the next century.