Sprinkles Are for Winners

Well lets get right to it shall we? The election was Saturday and there were some obvious winners and losers in this election cycle. The incumbents did as expected and all won. Two of them trounced their opponents. And now based on the performance in the election it wouldn't surprise me if the rumblings of Ordaz for Mayor started...

Obviously the headline is that Niland defeated her opponent by a margin that was far less comfortable for her than she would've liked. I look at that District 8 race as our version of the Tea Party Revolution a couple years ago where even a clown in duckie pj's won a congressional seat. Josh Dagda wore this years duckie pj's.

Lets tell the truth though about that race. There's a couple former westsiders (that now live out of town) that are likely reading this and I hope they finally get it, there is nothing unique about running a campaign on the westside. Its not "different". Ground games matter. Why do you think Dagda and Svarzbein both did so well? Its also the reason that the other two incumbents trounced their opponents.

Okay, ground game is partially the reason Dagda did well. Its mostly because of the fire fighters. So a couple of his field guys should put down the joint and realize that if the fire fighters weren't on the ballot, Niland would've creamed him.

As much as the crazies are celebrating their "moral victory" (thats the only thing you can celebrate when you lose), the reality is Niland was ripe for the picking and you guys didn't get the job done. Had you been running an Hispanic female, or a had Dagda used his whole name, the result might have been different. And Westsiders might be thinking this morning, "Dear Lord did we really just elect a guy who can't run a hot dog stand?"

Niland held her seat despite taking the brunt of the anti-incumbent sentiment from well-financed fire fighters. She basically had zero ground game. And he was running around pretending to be pro-union while talking about cutting taxes at the same time. Which means jobs would be lost or salaries cut at the city, which is a decidedly un-union position to take but no one called him out on it. Including Yours Truly. I pretty much left the kid alone on policy. Mostly because he had none. If I were Niland I would've sent a piece of mail about how his economic position would've affected union members to everyone who belongs to the fire fighter union.

But the reality for Niland is, say good bye to running for mayor. Not gonna happen. I have a hard time calling someone who won, a loser but the reality is her mayoral aspirations are done. She needed a big showing in that race in order to have the momentum to run citywide. The money and support aren't going to be there for her to run for mayor so she should focus on her work for District 8 at this point. And she should prepare for the reality that in four years there will likely be a Latina challenger. (UPDATE: I'm an idiot. She's term limited and the elections are moving to even years. Carry on.)

Now lets get to the sprinkles.

Who Gets Sprinkles?

Josh Dagda. you get sprinkles my friend. You took advantage of every opportunity in this race and that is exactly what you are supposed to do. Remember that in two years when you take another stab at it and run against Haggerty for County Commish on the Westside. Props for doing so well despite being outspent big time. Be graceful in defeat.

Fire Fighters, you guys get sprinkles too. Spent way too much money on a race that had no opposition, but hell, better to be safe than sorry. For the first time in a long time a campaign was successful at driving people to the polls that never voted before. They screwed with a lot of campaigns projections as a result.

Peter Svarzbein gets sprinkles. No one took him seriously and everyone blew him off. Now he's in a run-off and Weisenberger is in trouble. When you see a run-off happen, the person with the top number of votes isn't always the favorite. The reality is neither candidate got a majority of the votes. The newbies all voted in early voting, which left the regular voters on the table for Election Day and Svarzbein closed the gap on Weisenberger which means that he had a more effective GOTV plan. Run-offs are all about GOTV. If he can make his mail pieces more about the message and less about being cutsie, he's going to win. He's going to walk and he's going to have an organized GOTV effort. Forma is gonna urge Weisenberger to "sweep the leg" as they like to say and I'd expect mail from both camps to sharpen greatly.

Claudia Ordaz, home girl gets sprinkles and any other topping she wants. She dropped the hammer on her opponent and by far had the most effective campaign of anyone. Period. She raised a modest amount of money and didn't send one single negative mailer and still trounced her opponent. Its not only her second landslide victory, she actually extended her margin of victory from last July. If there should be buzz about anyone running for mayor at this point, I'll bet it starts with her soon. Young educated Latina who won reelection by breaking the 70% mark. Okay granted she was running against a candidate who was basically done nothing for El Paso and has been in El Paso less time than a bag of Sun Chips at a convenience store, but nonetheless he had a last name people are familiar with. And Eddie Holguin's endorsement. More on that later in the Biggest Loser section of this post. Seriously, even Batman and Captain America had a targeted message. Notice their strategic use of zip codes in their signs. Ordaz didn't lose a single precinct and in the valley she only had one precinct below 70%, which just missed the mark at 68%. Hell, one of her valley precincts came in at 90%. You know what Ordaz has that is better than sprinkles?

A mandate.

Mike Noe, that guy gets sprinkles too. He had a Latina female running against him and he handed out a trouncing as well. He probably would've been the headline had his neighbor to the south not put down the beating of a lifetime on Pickett. Both Ordaz and Noe benefited from having candidates that were ... uh ...eccentric. But Noe was facing a Latina that at least gave the impression that she had the capacity to raise some money. But just not savvy on policy. People have to stop running for office out of emotion. There's an intersection of timing and opportunity that people need to consider and Noe wiped out Cabrera (Arellano). B-T-Dubs...She's back to just Arellano already. I know, we all saw that coming.

Bonus sprinkles for Ordaz's team who are the MVP's for this election cycle. They implemented a ground strategy that not only shielded her from any anti-incumbency from the people coming out to support the fire fighters, but increased her margin of victory. She has the best messaging guy. She has the best field guy and hands down the best mail program as well. Limon is next door, she might want to start praying the rosary that she doesn't end up with an opponent or recall effort...

Bonus sprinkles also for Rookie of the Year goes to Alex Duran of Peter Svarzbein's campaign. Its one thing to be a field guy for a candidate with a lot of haters and take all the credit for what the fire fighters basically did for you, but its another thing to take a candidate who no one believed in to a run-off.

Upset of the Night Award is for Connie Woodruff and the Ysleta Teachers Association. They ran the table against the big fancy-schmancy consulting firm Forma Group. Woodruff, the incumbent, defeated a Latina female in the valley who had a 16-1 fundraising advantage over Woodruff. Paul Foster, Woody Hunt, Richard Castro, etc the list goes on. All those rich guys made it rain in that race and they got out-worked by some teachers who campaigned for Woodruff on their off time. Imagine if Dagda had those people running his field...But seriously, that is the biggest Forma Fail of the election cycle.

The Biggest Losers

Obviously the first people that come to mind are Hector Montes, Stephanie Townsend-Allala and Jaime O. Perez. None of their candidates won. Their message, even under the ideal circumstances for their candidates, still didn't resonate with voters.

It was an especially rough week from Townsend-Allala because she took a loss on Monday during Commissioner's Court as well with the passage of the Pre-Trial Office. He's an exchange between her and Commissioner Vince Perez.



The Kiss of Death Award goes to Eddie Holguin. Once again the former city rep backed a candidate that lost. At this point candidate should HOPE that Holguin doesn't endorse them. Its like making the cover of the next Madden game, always the kiss of death. For a candidate that says he's about the people and for a long time was one of the more high-profile Democrats in town, I can't understand why he backed a Libertarian, other than because his political Rasputin, JOP, is also a Libertarian. People in the Democratic Party need to seriously start asking Holguin the tough questions.

The Under-Performer Award goes to Bertha Gallardo's campaign team. Seriously, are you people kidding me? You have the only Hispanic female in the race (in El Paso) and still can't get her in a run-off? Jesus, what the hell? Her mail was awful and she didn't have much presence in the streets. I think as a candidate she had the goods. She was smart and likeable, other than a small meltdown over taking pictures at a televised debate. I think it was her team that failed her.

The Who Dun It Award goes to whoever was behind the push poll. It was a big time failure, but everyone still wants to know who was behind it.

Quick footnote: Two candidates that ran in the district 1 race did so with one arm tied behind their back. Daniel Lopez didn't take any money. It made it impossible for him to touch enough voters. He needed an experienced team and the right exposure. Money makes that happen. Nice guy and tons of policy knowledge. Manny Hinojosa, for as much as we disagree on policy, I like the guy. His politics just doesn't match this community. He shouldn't run anymore, but he shouldn't disengage entirely.