The 2012 Primary Awards

Here are my awards for the 2012 Primary Elections. I threw this out on Facebook and Twitter and a few readers submitted some additional categories and they have been included. One of my female readers included a particularly funny award category. Here are the awards:

Most Quotation Marks in One Sign Award – Rudy Loya

Absolutely Nicest Guy on the Campaign Trail – Rudy Loya. Honorable Mention – Jaime Romo

Best Poll Sitters / Workers – The Arditti Kids. Seriously the most-effective poll sitters.

Bost Poll Sitters / Workers Honorable Mention – Rita Sarinana and Roberto Lerma (they are out there every year and Lerma is hilarious)

Most Over-rated Social Media Campaign – Beto O'Rourke. Seriously, get off his sack about social media already. He owns a tech firm, it was supposed to have been good. Thats like a candidate that owns a sign company having good signs. They are supposed to. It was good, but it wasn't great.

Biggest Upset of the Election – Martha Dominguez winning the SBOE. Honorable Mention Rick Melendrez winning Dem Chair

The Come Back Kid – Luis Aguilar

Break-Out Star – Jose Landeros. Already has people looking at him. Seriously, this guy is getting recognition from within political circles for what he did with the Vince Perez campaign. Landeros jokes about not being the first choice for the job and he'd never run a campaign before but he was clearly up to the challenge.

Strangest Campaign Material - Corey Roen, Republican candidate for Congress. At his booth for events he would display all kinds of books and other material that were not about him, had nothing to do with him, and were not written by him. It was strange.

Most-Effective Mailers – Vince Perez. Hands down the most-effective use of mail of any candidate.

Candidates That Should Consider Retiring – Jerome Tilghman. God love him, but he just can't win a race. He did the best he's ever done in a campaign during this go-around, but he really should hang-em up. Or run for school board where he can win and where this town really needs his talent.

Worst Luck with Vehicles in a Campaign – Jose Landeros. Long story.

Best Cougar Bait (Submitted by reader Victoria Nevarez) Three-way tie between Beto O'Rourke, Vince Perez, and Aaron Barraza

Best Self-Sabotaging Use of Expletives Against Members of the Opponents Campaign (Also submitted by Nevarez, though she didn't include a winner...so I will) Team Reyes. An adult in that campaign should've confiscated the keys to everyone's FaceBook account and told them they can have their keyboards back after the election. Seriously, calling city reps “p#t@” and all the other stuff was just ugly.

Best Turn-Coats (another Nevarez submission): Three-way tie again. Cross-over Democrats for Ron Paul. Cross-over Republicans for Beto O'Rourke. Cross-over Chicano Democrats for Carrasco

Best Campaign Surrogate: Luis Torres from Reyes Campaign. Very effective debater. Too bad the crazies in cyberspace were the louder voices though.

Best Polling Place to Watch Crazy Happen During Early Voting: Carolina Center

Polling Place Most Likely to Have the Police Show Up: Carolina Center

Most Ridiculous Question Asked to a Candidate by a Reporter: “What did you have for breakfast today?”

Best Use of a Suit During a Campaign in the Valley By A Candidate Other Than Vince Perez: Javier Garcia, constable candidate. That guy wore a suit more often than even Vince.

Best Sport: Chente Quintanilla. Never takes anything personal. Hell, he even had some fun of his own teasing me about stuff I've written.

Worst Sport: Dora Oaxaca. The epitome of bitter in her defeat. Just watch any of the interviews she did with the media and you will see. She was angry for most of the campaign. Usually came off as uber-emotional and during early voting she got in to it with people from various campaigns, sometimes not even opposing campaigns.

Best Candidate that Should Have Won But Didn't: Tom Stanton & Butch Maya

Best Performance by a Rookie – Vince Perez

Best Performance by a Veteran – Jaime Esparza

Most Ridiculous Campaign Stunt: The Bull Dozer

Here are some award suggestions from readers that didn't make the cut this time, but will be used in the future:

Best Creator of Multiple Facebook Profiles for Political Purposes

Best Use of Endorsements by God, The Good Lord, or Jesus

Best Strategic Fear Mongering

Best/Worst Endorsement Record by a Public Figure, Political Organization, Duo or Group