El Paso Politics

In case you haven't noticed, we are starting to see a bit of slate politics brewing in this election. Some of it is idealogical common ground, but some of it is simply a marriage of convenience. A few candidates have their signs strategically placed together and in the case of one state representative, she is even helping the opponent of her political rival. State Representative Marissa Marquez is playing a key role in the campaign of Naomi Gonzalez who has an uphill battle brewing in her bid to unseat State Representative Norma Chavez. Thats a pretty interesting turn of events when one considers that it was just two short years ago when it was Chavez helping an upstart candidate take on another long-time state legislator who was a political rival of Chavez, State Representative Paul Moreno. For some unknown reason, State Rep Marissa Marquez escaped this round of elections without an opponent. That leaves her free to help a challenger take on her rival, State Rep Norma Chavez. Marq...

Candidate for District Clerk, Connie Telles-Odom, was present at State Rep Norma Chavez's campaign headquarters on Saturday. Telles-Odom was in attendance to walk a precinct in support of Representative Chavez's re-election bid. I didn't see any of Telles-Odoms' materials with her so there was no indication as to whether she indented to kill two birds with one stone, but given Chavez's popularity in the valley, it wouldn't surprise me if Telles-Odom did a little double duty. Given the proximity of early voting, its very likely that Telles-Odom was also passing out her literature in addition to Chavez's. I know that's what I would do if I were in Telles-Odoms position.

Larry Medina has been making the rounds at the various campaign forums where he is usually warmly received by people in attendance. I've personally heard him asked more than ten times about why he dropped out of the race. Medina politely answers the question when it comes from regular people. He got in to a little spat with David Crowder last Saturday over another issue, but cooler heads prevailed and the two eventually sat next to each other over breakfast for a short while. As you can see here, Louis Irwin's campaign sign is being held by Larry Medina. No word from Medina as to whether one should consider it an endorsement, but it was a pretty light moment after an eventful form.

Last weekend I Tweeted about someone putting soap in the wishing well fountain at Cielo Vista Mall. I forgot to post the pic of the fountain. Here it is, sorry the pic isn't the greatest quality, all I had was my cell phone camera at the time.

I got some real good advice about my coverage of local politics today. I get a lot of criticism. Trust me, a lot. When its constructive, I really do appreciate it. The critique I got today was very well deserved and opened my eyes to something I was doing that I hadn't really noticed was happening at that time. As a result, I'll tighten up my shot group. People have come to read my blog because of my coverage of local politics and lately I have been a little focused on the race for County Attorney. I don't regret my coverage for one minute, and will continue to cover it. But I really should write a little more about some of the other races, especially during this campaign season. So lets examine the state senate race which is a race to determine the successor to Senator Eliot Shapleigh. The Republicans have Dan Chavez. The Democrats have Jose Rodriguez, Louis Irwin, and Liza Montelongo. Jose Rodriguez is the favorite in this race and the likely victor. Irwin and Montelongo ...

Larry Medina and his wife, Ruth Reyes-Medina welcomed a son in to the world yesterday evening. Kennedy Christian Medina and mom are both doing well and resting comfortably. No word from Kennedy as to whether he will be seeking a business, political, or legal career in the future. This is the first pic of father and son.

Since I am having a hard time getting an interview with Caballero these days, I thought I'd just throw some of my questions out there to see if perhaps she will address them at some point. TC has talked at great length about conflicts of interest. So lets examine the other side of the conflict issue. Its nice that she talks about conflicts for issues like Ethics Commission, but I'm curious about another scenario. I'm wondering what her position will be about pursuing corruption. She's talked about that pretty regularly, but what about some of the people she's been associated with. Will she pursue cases against them in the interest of seeking justice, or will she say there is a conflict. Case in point, the Catalina land deal. Some of the people she's been associated with are defendants in that case. If she is elected County Attorney, what happens to those cases? Does her office continue pursuing the issue or does the case come to a halt. If she does pursue the ca...

Okay, I'm not exactly jumping for joy at the results of last weeks election of Scott Brown to be the new senator from Massachusetts. But there is a lesson to be learned with Scott Brown's victory and some others around this country, like Houston electing its first openly gay mayor and yes, event the Tea Party Movement. Here's what brown people, La Raza, can learn from those people: organize and vote and you can change the leadership around you. The problem we have in our community is that we don't channel or direct our collective coraje in the right direction. We direct it in to our own community or within our own leadership. Actually, what's worse is what happens far more often. We give up and become apathetic. We make the biggest and most damaging mistake our people can possibly make. We stop going to the polls. We stop voting. We stop being relevant. This is an important message at any time but particularly in this election season. We have the power now to set t...

Theresa Caballero is used to getting her way by bullying people around. She pulls this whole Devil Wears Prada kind of thing with people and they cower to her brow beatings. Personally I hate bullies. They like to throw their weight around as long as no one stands up to them. That seems to be an innate quality of Theresa Caballero, but I think her campaign against Jaime Esparza only fed her bully mentality. He basically rolled over and played dead for her. She wasn’t going to show up to City Rep Emma Acosta’s candidate forum this weekend because she was going to have to participate in a forum moderated by David Crowder. Caballero is having a hard time dealing with her opponent Joan Bernal in debates and didn’t want to have to be in the same room as Crowder. I guess she felt like she wouldn’t get a fair shake. That seems to be a theme with Caballero, but more on that later. So she bullied Acosta in to giving in to her wishes and Crowder didn’t moderate her debate. But as you can see in ...

Man, I didn't even get a chance to ask my question!

Despite the fact that he kept trying to walk away from me, I was able to get an interview with Jaime O. Perez after a debate the other night. It was a straight-up interview. I asked him about his candidacy. For some reason many Republicans still look at JOP with a bit of trepidation. Let me assure my friends from the other side of the aisle, JOP is absolutely one of you guys. No doubt about it. Not only is he one of yours, (it pains me to say this) he seems to have a pretty good command of the issues. One of the things he said that I actually (here I go again) found refreshing, was his declaration that he was going to talk about the issues and not stuff that has no bearing on the race. Lets see if he sticks to his guns. He's not going to be anywhere close to winning, but he'll make things interesting just by having his name on the ballot. Fiscal issues are what he seems to be most focused on, the question is what his approach will be. He went on record as saying we aren't r...

I've refrained from talking about the whole Conan V. Jay scenario play itself out on late night television. Many have asked me why. Well the answer is simple, I don't care. Know why? Because only viejitos care about late night television on network television. Everyone else watches cable anyway. But for some reason, old people are really paying attention to the late night drama, which is weird because they are usually falling asleep around 9pm. But I guess the late night television wars are a little like the teenage drama Twilight. My daughters have their little mock rivalry of Team Edward and Team Jacob. I'm thinking of selling t-shirts at the old folks home that say Team Conan and Team Jay. If you ask me, most people in Hollywood are blood suckers anyway!

This is only temporary folks. I am doing some upgrades to my blog, but its going to take a while. I am going to post stuff here for a while, sorry for the inconvenience. Stay tuned, much more to come!