Candidate Thumbnail: Aaron Barraza

Aaron Barraza is challenging State Rep Marisa Marquez for her seat in HD 77. Marquez famously defeated long-time State Rep Paul Moreno four years ago.

Barraza just moved back from Austin and was profiled in the El Paso Times recently. Barraza reached out to me and asked to meet with me so I could get to know him a little better. I agreed and I met with him, his campaign manager, and a couple of other people who were interested in vetting his candidacy.

Here's how it went (and I'm not telling you anything I didn't tell him):

First impressions - Barraza is 23 years old, which is young. And he doesn't even look 23, he looks younger. He's a good looking young man. He's somewhere between an Abercrombie & Finch model and Edward from Twilight. I think it was the hair that made me think of the Twilight reference.

So far, my first impression of him was the same as pretty much everyone else I know that has met him so far, which admittedly isn't very many. He comes across as such a nice young man. He is very polite. Great posture. Very respectful young man. Decent handshake. Clearly, he was raised right.

That will play very well with seniors, though his age will probably hurt him. Its not that El Paso doesn't elect young people. We do. In fact, at a pretty high rate. But not 23 1/2 years old young.

His family lives up on Rim Road, he went to Cathedral, and went to UT Austin. Clearly he is also a pretty intelligent young man. Frankly, I like the vato. No alarms went off when I met him.

He explained a few of the things in the El Paso Times piece like the resume issue. He said that it was Marquez's staffer who is a friend of his that helped him punch up his resume and he was the one who put in the objective statement that said Barraza was looking for a communications position. Barraza said he didn't even think Marquez has such a position with her office.

But he was very secretive about who his supporters were. I pressed him on it but he hunkered down. Which I found a little suspicious because there really isn't a reason to withhold names of supporters unless there is something bad about them. But he said there is a strategy so I take him at his word.

Pros - Barraza is hungry. He used the term "opportunity" 20+ times and that shows me he wants to win. I turned the heat up on him a couple of times just to see what he was made of and the one good thing about him when I turned up the heat was that he came across as tenacious.

He comes from a pretty well-to-do family, so I think he'll have some starter cash to get his race going.

His opponent has a group of entrenched politicos that would like nothing better than to get rid of her. There are also pockets of voters in the district that aren't happy with Marquez.

He has some limited experience with politics in Austin, which isn't much but is enough to give him a foundation.

From what he and his campaign manager said, there is a group of other young guys he went to school with that are going to help out with his campaign.

He's got guts. He proved that by contacting me after I had written a piece in which I called his candidacy a joke. At the end of the conversation he asked me what I thought about his chances. After I gave him my assessment, he was still very confident and said, "I look forward to proving you wrong".

I respect that.

Cons - Seems like he's in over his head. He needs to have a deeper understanding of the issues. He doesn't appear to have that right now. I asked about a few bills that were high-profile in the last session and he didn't appear to know too much about them. But he was honest about it, so that is a good thing.

But he also didn't know how many precincts were in his district, how many precinct chairs, or who his precinct chair is.

He has no poker face. That is bad in politics. When he doesn't know the answer, you can see it on his face before he says anything. When he is rattled, you can tell right away. Marquez will jump all over that and go in for the kill.

When I did turn up the heat, he was clearly uncomfortable. I really didn't put my foot on the gas either, just a little jab here and there. If he has trouble with that, I think Marquez is going to eat him alive in a debate scenario.

A lot of that stuff is fixable.

The unfamiliarity of the issues is the easiest fix. He can always hit the books and bone up on issues. The shaping and delivering of a message is also pretty easy to fix. So thats not a problem.

But there are other problems that are not so easy to fix. Chief among them is the inexperience of his campaign staff. If they are all school buddies, he's in trouble. His campaign manager's political experience has pretty much been holding signs and passing out campaign materials in a previous election. (BTW, he is also a smart guy, just inexperienced).No deep knowledge or experience with a ground game. That is essential in a district that is an easy district to walk like 77th.

He needs help. Real help. He needs a seasoned consultant or operative team. And he needs it right away.

He also needs the support of some of the Marquez-haters like the Moreno clan. They live in the district and could help him with fundraising.

Barraza has a future. If he stays in El Paso, he will be a big somebody some day. But I think its too early, I think his timing is off, I don't think he'll have the money to wage the war he's going to need to be able to wage, and I don't think he has the tools to take advantage of some of Marquez's weaknesses.

Marquez is sitting on a pile of money and hasn't really even started to fund raise. If Annie's List already dropped $20k to give a long-shot some seed money, I'm pretty sure that they will drop some cash to protect the seat of a female pro-choice Democrat if things start to tighten up.

So someday Barraza will be an elected official.

Just not this session. But give him 5-10 years and I think he'll do very well.