A Day in the Life of a Candidate: Vince Perez

I had another opportunity to shadow a candidate earlier this week and it was Vince Perez. Perez, who was formerly the Press Secretary to Congressman Reyes is a candidate for El Paso County Commissioner Precinct #3.

The day started at 8:00am at his home near Bel Air High School. I'd been to the home before and it has been transformed. It is now a giant campaign headquarters for his campaign, with signs, walking lists, and other campaign materials all over the place.

If you haven't met Perez its important you understand who he is. Vince Perez is a nerd. I don't mean it in a derogatory way, what I mean is, he is the text-book example of what you think of that nerd you went to high school with that is all grown-up now.

He is successful, incredibly intelligent, and he is a little awkward. He's lanky and tall. Dresses in nice suits when its necessary but is most comfortable in western shirts, a pair a boots, and jeans that look uncomfortably tight. And he's a very nervous guy. He's a worrier.

In an almost compulsive manner, Perez is data-driven.

There's a backroom that was used at some point by his mother for some other purpose and is now Perez' war room. Where Mary Gonzalez is a ball of energy with papers all over the place, Perez is the picture of efficiency. He and his campaign manager, Jose Landeros, are a case study in efficiency. The duo make better use of technology (lap tops, tablets, and smart phones) than any other campaign I've seen. And yes, I'm including the Congressional candidates in that assessment.

Landeros is almost the polar opposite of Perez. He's also egg-head smart and analytical, but he is the calming influence in their odd couple relationship. Nothing bothers Landeros. He fears nothing and looks at everything as a problem that has a solution. He's usually cracking jokes, downing Dr. Pepper, and pounding away at his laptop.

The campaign is very Texas. Both wear boots, Landeros proudly details little known facts about Texas like explaining that Dr. Pepper is a Texas product, and they are usually listening to country music on Spotify. The small refridgerator in the corner of the room is well-stocked with Dr. Pepper.

Perez and Landeros look at data daily and make decisions based on cold analysis. Not hunches, intuition, or a gut feeling. They look at the data and move the pieces around the chess board accordingly. On Saturday, his home was completely full with campaign volunteers. Every common-area room had a few phone-bankers stationed inside to make phone calls from refined phone-banking lists based on, you guessed it, the data analysis of the team.

As I was with them going over the final early voting numbers and the numbers turned out almost exactly as they had projected, almost down to the decimal point. These guys have it down to a science. After the data analysis is down from the previous days early voting numbers, Perez makes changes in phone-banking and block-walking strategy accordingly.

Perez is constantly checking his iPhone for information and shuffling through papers. On a personal level, Perez does extremely well with voters. He's well-mannered and seniors seem to love him. Perez has been working on his Spanish and has it down pretty well. Even the family members of his opponents begrudginly find him likable.

And the Perez volunteers are absolutely drama-free at the polls during early voting.

Vince's parents each take on their own individual roles according to their strengths. Mrs. Perez usually poll sits at Carolina or Pavo Real. Mr. Perez spends his days fixing signs, puting signs up, and feeding volunteers.

After some poll-sitting in the morning, it was off to the County to go get even more data from the Elections Department. Perez talks things through to Landeros as they make the drive back from the downtown area back to the Precinct. Landeros is already extracting and analyzing data.

Since they take advantage of techonology, Landeros is already breaking down the data and printing out lists, charts, and tables. The campaign printer was taken along on the trip for the exact purpose of being able to print out and distribute the most accurate and up-to-date lists to the poll sitters and block-walkers.

Thats what I mean, efficiency in action.

The rest of the day is devoted to meeting with voters and doing some block-walking to voters that hadn't made it out to the polls yet. And then the end-of-day activities start. The signs start coming down and the planning starts for the next day. Perez never really unwinds, he just sort of downshifts.

The end of the day comes well after dark and he spends time with his girlfriend watching some show that he's not really watching.

He's staring at the tube but his mind is clearly somewhere else.

He's thinking about that chess board.

He's thinking about strategy.

He's thinking about his next move.

By all rights Perez shouldn't even be a viable candidate. He's from the urban part of the district. He's not fluent in Spanish, he doesn't come from a wealthy family, he doesn't come from a politically connected family. He's the ultimate underdog in a race in the valley.

And yet, you just have this feeling that Perez will be in the run-off.

Perez was masterful at deploying a blistering messaging attack on Gandara from day one. He chased him out of the race. He has CLEARLY gotten in to the head of Oaxaca by making her lose control at forums, debates, and at the polling places. Perez then focused his attention on Quintanilla who is now having to look over his shoulder at the former congressional staffer.

And when Perez is in the run-off, I'll call it - Revenge of the Nerds.