The Reyes Loss

Quick thoughts on the Congressional race.

To Reyes supporters - I know its going to take awhile, but the Congressman lost. Process it and move forward. Don't be bitter. Its politics, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

To O'Rourke supporters - Reyes isn't the devil. He never was. And lets not pretend that he didn't make a big contribution to El Paso because he did. Don't gloat, its not going to win you any friends.

I am surprised at how many Republicans appear to have turned out to flip for O'Rourke. I didn't think that would happen and it apparently did. When O'Rourke's Democratic credentials were challenged it probably made it a lot easier for Republicans to cross over.

The Reyes campaign showed exactly why you should never run a campaign by committee. Too many people debating minutia. And it is also a lesson about social media. The Reyes people really flipped out online.

Calling City Representative Susie Byrd a p$%* on Facebook just looks crass and low-brow.

That was a big mistake because its hard to control messaging when you have people going rogue and screwing up your message all over Facebook by being bat-guano insane.

Yes, yes, I know - some of the O'Rourke people were pretty bad themselves. I get it. I acknowledge it. Hell Susie Byrd sent a couple of pretty messed up emails herself. There were no where near as bad as the stuff the Reyes camp was doing and Byrd maintains that she was simply calling out a couple of people for what she says were lies.

But the point is people should really learn a lesson from this campaign. Social media will be a powerful tool when its harnessed properly. But until them, aren't we all a little tired of watching campaigns self-destruct on the internet?

Pittle did well with his hands being tied behind his back. He did a great job refreshing the Congressman's image. But the extremists in the Reyes camp that wanted to make it a war rather than a contest of ideas undid a lot of his work.

O'Rourke is the Democratic nominee now. Democrats should support him. That doesn't mean we shouldn't hold him accountable for some of his positions, particularly on labor. But there is already an empty threat of people saying that they are going to support Carrasco in the general.

If you do that, you are an idiot.

Because no self-respecting Democrat would ever support an extremist Republican like Carrasco. Listen to her policy stances. She doesn't reflect the values of El Paso. She does not deserve the support of good Democrats just because you are bitter about a loss.

Think I'm wrong? Just wait til you hear here positions on immigration.

So don't support Carrasco out of spite. Plus, most of you are just talking smack anyway. When you get in to that polling place you won't be able to vote for someone like that. The most you'll do is undervote.

And for those of you that are talking smack about the Congressman allegedly hiding out, stop a think for a minute. He lost a hotly-contested race. He's been a Congressman for a long time. No one likes to lose and it wasn't an easy race for him. His wife was pretty ill for a while. Most people don't lose their jobs in public and have people talk smack about them for months.

I'm just saying, have a little compassion. Whether or not you agree with his positions or votes or whatever, he's still a human being. Not too many of you would wanna have to answer questions from a reporter after something like that.

At the end of the day, the ground game wasn't sound for the Congressman. When a fighter hasn't fought in a long time and hasn't trained hard, well they have their Mike Tyson / Buster Douglas moment. The congressman should've done some block walking of his own. He should've made some personal connections and this would've been a different outcome.

Especially if he hadn't lost Vince Perez as his voice. Perez was able to effectively manage media relations. I can guarantee that most of the hits Reyes took in the media, and he was a real pinata at times for the media, wouldn't have happened if he'd kept Perez. It wouldn't have been an adversarial relationship.

The failure wasn't just the Reyes camp. It can be shared with the local Democratic Party. Reyes had the most-popular Democratic President since Kennedy come and endorse him. He had the sitting President endorse him. And he still lost.

Without a run-off.

Only one direction to go in now.

Forward.