Catching Up on Odds & Ends

Family is in town so I have been too busy to blog lately. So here are just some quick hits to catch-up on the political scene.

Beto O'Rourke spoke at the El Paso Young Democrats Meeting on Monday. Much smaller crowd that what showed up for the Congressman. Generously speaking it was a little more than a third the attendance that the Congressman's appearance had.

But since it was Thanksgiving week I think people just had full calendars and couldn't make it out. They missed a good performance by O'Rourke. Looks like he has really refined his critique of the Congressman. He is very sharp and succinct in his criticism of the Congressman focusing on the number of bills Reyes has sponsored, and his voting and attendance record.

O'Rourke now needs to start honing his message about what he's going to do. You hear a lot of criticism of the Congressman, but not a lot what he would do different or what his agenda would look like outside of the word jobs. I'd like there to be something more tangible on that side of his campaign messaging.

O'Rourke did a good job of trying to turn the tables on attacks against his Democratic credentials. And I myself had a chance to ask him about his feelings of the Healthcare Reform Act.

We also briefly touched on his position of marijuana legalization. His position has actually evolved on legalization over the last couple of years, but I'll talk about that a bit later.

In short, O'Rourke looked like a very strong Congressional candidate. He looked like someone who could take out a long-term incumbent. He was dynamic, funny, and engaging. He even took a shot at City Rep Eddie Holguin which drew a few laughs. In fact, if there is ever a celebrity roast of Eddie Holguin, I think O'Rourke should be invited.

I tried to record video, but since I wasn't manning the camera, I didn't realize that he wasn't in the frame from most of his time on the mic. So I'll try to just grab the audio and post it so you can at least hear what he had to say. My bad people, I tried to frame the shot in pretty tight to get a good image, but I walked away from the tripod. I'll get audio up later this week.

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A quick rehash of something I've written before about judicial races, but the message apparently isn't hitting home.

I know judicial candidates have to deal with the intricacies of the legal community and that can be a tricky thing to navigate sometimes. But candidates need to understand one thing.

When you are running for judge, the legal community doesn't make the decisions. They are such a small part of the electorate that someone could run and not really need to even deal with the legal community. The point is, when you are running for a judicial seat, your target should be voters, not other lawyers.

Don't speak over the heads of voters. Understand that they don't really have a frame of reference for a lot of the legal mumbo-jumbo or recognition. Frankly it means very little to them because they don't know much about the bench. They vote on their gut. Who they like, who they think they can trust, who they feel will be honest, and who they think they will be fair.

In other words, its not the most qualified candidate, its who tells the best story.

Just something to remember.

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Congressman Reyes was part of a delegation of congressional immigration reform advocates that went to Alabama to draw attention to the new anti-immigrant legislation out of that state. He went along with Congressman Grijalva of Arizona and Congressman Gutierrez of Illinois who is the leading congressional advocate of comprehensive immigration reform.

Which is interesting because O'Rourke has pointed out that he didn't think the fight for comprehensive immigration reform should come from Illinois but rather the border region.

Dolores Huerta and other civil rights advocates were also in attendance.

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Aaron Pena, the former Democrat who switched parties in the last round of Texas legislative elections and became the guy that gave the Republicans a bullet-proof majority has announced that he's not seeking re-election.

I think he saw the writing on the wall and knew he was dead meat in this election. He was absolutely going to get a more than normal amount of attention from Democratic Party in terms of a challenger. And the way Republicans treat Latinos in their party, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that he would've ended up with a Republican challenger in the primary, to say nothing of the money he would've had to raise in a general election.

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So I pride myself of speaking truth to power, so lets do a little of that. I know this is going to bug a lot of O'Rourke supporters, but lets just rip off the band aid.

O'Rourke is the media favorite and has been getting a total pass on the legalization issue. If that bothers you, get over it because its the truth. No one in the media wants to touch the issue. What other guy releases a book advocating for legalization of marijuana, in the middle of a high-profile campaign, and there is grand total of only one article written about the issue?

One.

And it was about a week after the release of the book.

Seriously real media people? Could you be more obvious?

Had that been any other politico in town, that issue would've been used as a hammer against that candidate. I know for a fact that its been an issue for voters.

I've said this before, I'm against legalization of drugs, which admittedly means I'm not very objective on the issue. But at any rate, its an issue that is at the very least controversial and deserves some public discussion, which simply isn't happening because media isn't examining the issue or his position. Obviously that is a favorable development for O'Rourke.

From my conversations with O'Rourke his position has changed from legalization of drugs to a more refined argument of legalization of marijuana.

By the way, before some of you get really upset that I'm writing this, I've told O'Rourke I thought he's been getting a pass on the issue, so this isn't going to be news to him.

In fact, its not even a criticism of O'Rourke, its a criticism of coverage. O'Rourke is actually being pretty brilliant about how he's handled the issue from the get go. He's been smart enough to try to avoid a deep discussion about the issue because he probably realizes that the more he talks about it, the more there is a potential to get hurt by the controversial stand.

He usually makes a bit of a peremptory strike and says something like the issue is too complex to be dealt with in a short answer, or the issue takes a long time to really hash out, or that he doesn't want his campaign to be belittled or pigeon holed by the conversation. Which has worked brilliantly because most reporters are scared shitless of raising the issue.

Again, a critique of coverage, not O'Rourke. He's doing exactly what he should be doing in terms of managing the media. Direct them away from anything negative about yourself and turn the attention on the opponent.

It's basic political messaging. Watch any experienced politico for a few minutes and you'll see it happen. If you want a really visible example of this, watch the presidential candidates on the Republican side.

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During the Sun Bowl Parade yesterday I started a "Moody, Moody" chant when State Rep Dee Margo came by. I think some of the members of the delegation might have thought I was booing them.

I noticed the Mayor had much more vocal support when he walked by in the parade than I thought he was going to have. Its anecdotal and means nothing, but I thought it was interesting. And I was sitting with a pretty dialed in political crowd at the parade.

Which reminds me. Hey Sun Bowl, tighten up the screws on the Sun Bowl Parade. It was lame this year. Nothing cool added from last year except the Clydesdales. There were way too many instances of the parade just coming to a complete stop for long periods of time.

Lame. Fix it Sun Bowl people.