And That's How Its Done People...

It wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to do it.

He's not “valley enough”. He's not “Mexican-enough”. He looks to young, he's too skinny, he doesn't have money, he's not connected to power factions in the valley, he doesn't come from a political family.

Oh, and he doesn't speak Spanish.

And yet, Vince Perez was able to end up in a run-off election against State Rep Chente Quintanilla for the El Paso County Commissioner Precinct 3 seat.

He was able to defeat two valley candidates. He was able to beat someone with more name ID. More money. More political connections.

How did he do it?

By running the most efficient campaign in town. Vince Perez along with Jose Landeros and Jorge Reyes ran the most effective campaign I've seen in a long time. From day one Perez had strategy in place. He had, hands down, the most effective message discipline of any campaign. More so than either of the Congressional candidates.

They made every resource they had go as far as they possibly could. They squeezed everything out of their campaign. Every mailer counted. Every message and advertisement was carefully crafted. Every piece of data that could be analyzed was examined. He moved his pieces around the chess board.

And their analysis was exactly as predicted. Once the run-off is over I will go over some of it in more detail, but Perez and Landeros nailed it.

They showed how its done.

Even his team of volunteers was different. You never heard anyone say, “boy those Perez workers are really rude” or anything like that.

And I think I know the moment when I felt the race start to turn in his favor. It was at the Socorro debate. Perez stayed on issues the whole time while the other candidates complained about negative campaigning. Again, I think its ironic that there were those complaints coming from candidates from the valley. They valley has refined negative campaigning to nuclear grade capacity.

At that debate Perez was being pounded on by his opponents. He didn't bring a sting of cheerleaders with him to clap after everything he said. He was basically there alone. I cannot begin to articulate how intimidating that can be. Especially in the valley.

But he stayed on message and demonstrated he had the deepest knowledge of the issues. And when the candidates all got in their last dig on Perez during the closing statements, Perez unleashed the best and most-effective closing statement I've seen in a local race. It was so good that one of Dora Oaxaca's supporters stood up and gave him a standing ovation.

That is how its done people.

I always knew he was going to be a formidable candidate. He had been the well-dressed, well-spoken voice of the Congressman. He's almost always the smartest guy in the room.

But there were times along the way that I wasn't convinced he was going to be able to pull it off.

And the race has changed greatly. When the race started he had just left the Congressman's office and Willie Gandara was in no real danger of losing. The Congressman's committee tried to talk him out of running. But he stood by his decision to run.

He led off the campaign with a blistering critique of Gandara's attendance record. He eventually chased Gandara out of the race.

Then Quintanilla and Oaxaca jumped in the race. They changed the race the minute they got in. Two powerful valley candidates. Both with the ability to raise money and both with strong name ID.

Things started to look a little rough.

And along the way, Vince Perez lost his grandmother. I went to the funeral.

I remembered thinking how no one would blame him if he decided to get out of the race. I remember I was devastated when I lost my Nana.

And a group of us all stood together dressed in suits on that sunny day. It was me, Alfredo Longoria, Jose Landeros, and Hector H. Lopez. None of knew his grandmother but we were all Vince's friends. As I looked around at everyone I remember the look on Vince's face. I remember thinking how difficult it would be to go through something like the loss of the family matriarch right in the middle of the campaign.

But he kept going. He kept pushing.

He kept block-walking.

And most of the time the campaign was pretty much just Perez and Landeros. Eating sandwiches out of a cooler in the back of a car.

They lost a couple vehicles in car accidents along the way.

Things got pretty crazy.

But the duo of boy geniuses kept going.

And at 7:02pm last night when the early voting numbers were released, a big fat gasp of surprise went through the valley. They surprised everyone.

Except themselves. Everything was pretty close to what they projected.

Oaxaca didn't take it well from what I saw on television. I called Rudy Loya and he was the same happy-go-lucky guy he has been the entire race. He thanked his supporters and was glad to have their support. I asked him about the run-off and who he was going to support.

He said he was going to support Perez.

Perez called Quintanilla (a phone call facilitated by Mattew Quintanilla, Chente's grandson) to congratulate him on being in the run-off and the two chatted for a few minutes. 

The guy none of them took seriously out-worked, out-organized, and out-hustled everyone.

Now there is a run-off. There is no top-ticket race to draw people to the polls so its now a matter of who can get their people back to the polls on election day.

Its too early to tell what that is going to look like but it will come down to organization and messaging.

Both things the Perez team excels at.

Not too bad for a vato who wears suits and doesn't speak Spanish. Que no?