El Paso Politics

P.T. Barnum was right and Chris Hernandez really knows how to pick'em... He really went out of his way to go out and get him the Four Horsemen of Terrible Candidates this election cycle. Jaime Barceleau, who has a shit ton of money, is probably not making the run-off. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to try to take the title of douchiest candidate from David Saucedo before its all said and done. Especially now that Norma didn't buy this years Favorite Elected Official - she lost it to an outgoing mayor who is under investigation by the Texas Rangers. According to both Antonio Williams and Cassandra Brown, Jaime Barceleau was bragging at a recent forum about how he voted for Dee Margo. If you recall I posted a picture of the Barceleau home with a Dee Margo signs in front of it a long time ago. Wonder how Saucedo feels about his field guy helping all these other candidates who have ties to Dee Margo like Barceleau and Morgan... Anywho... Barceleau posted this on his s...

The latest very sad development from the on-going Boys & Girls Club financial crisis underscores why Saucedo is such a terrible choice for mayor. Here is a story in the El Paso Times today. Basically here's a synopsis of the situation. David Saucedo has been on the board for about a decade and was the board president for the last year when the economic shit hit the fan. Saucedo brought in the Executive Director, his buddy from Cathedral Dr. Joseph Villescas. Many board members didn't want him but Saucedo insisted. There were documented problems for a couple years, so it was most certainly under Saucedo's watch. Then when all hell breaks loose, Saucedo decides to distance himself from the problem because he knows how bad it makes him look. He blames it on basically everyone but him. That is not a character you want in a mayor. That is not leadership. But it gets better. Saucedo further digs his hole by essentially saying he didn't know anything about financial woes a...

I promised the other day that I would give my judicial picks and since probably a dozen people have contacted me about how they had wish I had posted Elisa Morales' voting record before they went to the polls, I thought I had better get to posting my judicial picks. Also, I was checking my traffic this morning and you guys apparently took a real interest in that particular post for some reason. This isn't an endorsement. My endorsement means nothing. This is just who I am voting for and why. Now before I go on, I need to explain something to all you lawyer types. What you don't understand is that we elect judges. Are the public the most qualified to make an informed decision based on the legal acumen of a given an attorney or judge as to who is best suited for the position? No - we aren't. But lets be real, most of you aren't either unless you have practiced in front of, or with, all the attorneys vying for the position. One lawyer social media friend basically impl...

You can do a lot of things in politics and get a way with it. But one thing you can't do is get caught telling a story that simply isn't true. My favorite YISD trustee Ana Dueñez appears to have lied to the El Paso Times in a recent questionnaire. The Times sent out questions to candidates as part of their endorsement process. The Times published the answers the various candidates gave to the questions and I found one particularly note worthy. Here's a screenshot of the portion of the Times article I'm referring to. As you can see, its a very clearly worded question that asks specific questions of a candidate. As you can see in Dueñez's response underlined in blue, she sorta diverts the answer to the arrest question and doesn't deal with it directly. No big deal, I've been arrested so I'm not gonna point he finger at her. But its the second part of her answer that is troubling. The question is very specific as to whether the candidate has ever been in ar...

Elisa Morales feels like the media isn't giving her a fair shot. I was gonna vote for her for about 2 days until I realized that she just moved back to El Paso about as recently as Diana Ramos moved into District 4 to run. In fact, she's a female candidate that just moved into an area to run, so you'd think she'd be Susie Byrd's candidate. Well the reason you know that she's not Susie's candidate is because of her voting record. Took me awhile to find it because she doesn't have one in El Paso County. But she does have one in San Antonio. The land of shitty Mexican food. Morales talks a lot about bipartisanship and working for a Democratic Congressman and a Republican Congressman. She talks a lot about progressive issues too. She's even been endorsed by the local Green Party. But if you check out her voting history, she's only ever voted in Republican Primaries according to VAN. So that makes her the same as Dee Margo and David Saucedo. This is w...

I'm waiting on a video of a candidate caught red-handed in a video removing campaign literature of an opponent from a candidates home. There's no way to "fake-news", "No comment", or "unavailable" to this story. As soon as I get it, I'll post it. Its bush-league crap for one candidate to do that to another, but it will give you insight as to just how far some candidates will take things. ****************************** A few municipal candidates got an email from a very upset Texas Democratic Party. They have to behave themselves now or they will lose their VAN access - which would be devastating at this point in the ball game. Yes gentlemen, I know all about it... ****************************** Not sure why David Saucedo thinks its such a big deal to have the endorsement of one of the most divisive people in the Democratic Party but he is apparently so proud of it, he put it in his newsletter. Othon Medina is a former chair of the Tejano Democr...

Sorry hater-nation, I'm not talking about Yours Truly. I'm talking about Jaime Barceleau. I have a gentlemen's bet with a buddy of mine who is going to need to be consoled when he's gonna have to pay up with Jaime Barceleau doesn't make the run-off. Yeah, I'm completely aware that he has all the money. I'm also aware of the fact that he's another Jimmy Suerkin. By the way, what ever happened to that guy? He's still a political reference point as someone who should've won and found a way to lose. If he were still around, Chris Hernandez would do his field and Forma Group would be over charging him for shitty mail and a social media page that is free. Anywho, the run-off is going to be between Cassandra Brown and Antonio Williams. And trust me...that run-off is gonna get DIRTY. But before the run-off, let me explain why Jaime Barceleau is going to be a bigger loser than Jaime O. Perez.... Just kidding, no one is a bigger loser than Jaime O. Perez. ...

It's not the first time in this race that there has been some charges of bigotry floating around the District 4 race - and specifically around Morgan. Early in the campaign Morgan compared Diana Ramos and Melina Castro. Those two don't have anything in common other than being women and the color of their skin. In a KCOS debate Morgan raised the issue of domestic partner benefits - then denied saying that he said it before it was aired - then it aired and he hasn't said a word about it since. It wasn't really overt, but it was absolutely that dog whistle stuff conservatives do. And now Morgan is saying that the El Paso Times is racist because of a picture that was in the El Paso Times news story about some questionable expenses on his campaign report. Morgan makes the charge in an interview on KTSM. Click this link to view the story . The picture he's upset about is this one: Morgan is misleading people making it sound like the El Paso Times went out to purposely fin...

The funny and sad thing about this election is that it might be the first time that the mayoral candidates were so shitty that they suppressed voter turnout in other races. Seriously, how bad are things when a guy who has never won an election like Jeremy Jordan is actually getting paid to be a political consultant? I mean what would you pay the guy for, being douchey and not knowing anything about campaigns? If they pay people for not knowing anything about campaigning then they should hire Daniel Lopez. Anywho, I was thinking about who I am going to vote for in the mayoral election since early voting has started. After long thought and deep consideration I have finally made up my mind. Willie Cager. He's the only candidate I can vote for and still look myself in the mirror. Emma Acosta has a demonstrated track record of being bad for El Paso - and now calling the undocumented "illegal" has sunk her to a new low. No self-respecting Democrat who believes in the values and...

Sam Morgan really messed up and then compounded the mistake by messing up even worse. And frankly, it doesn't bode well for his demeanor which is already a major problem on council. District 4 candidate Sam Morgan appears to have paid his rent for his business using campaign funds according to a recent article in the El Paso Times. To read the story, click this link . The problem is that its a violation of campaign laws to do so if he indeed did you the campaign funds to pay for his rent. However, if he rented an entirely different space that just happened to be in the same building, that would be a different story. It would lead to questions about why he didn't indicate it was a different office in the same building on his report, and a reporter might have asked to see a copy of a lease or something, and he might have had to explain why it was only two months rent when leases usually aren't made for two months, but its also not unheard of. But instead he did something wor...

Margo on the defensive. Saucedo said something stupid (shocker). Emma referred to the undocumented as "illegal" (genuinely a shocker). Thats pretty much how the debate on ABC 7 Xtra went last night. Not a lot of time to get through a lot of information with three mayoral candidates but the result was interesting nonetheless. Emma Acosta's presence was almost forgotten. Several times during the debate I forgot she was there until they changed the camera angle. That is her job as a candidate to make sure she's at least putting up a fight and chiming in on issues. She completely failed at that and ended up using the word "illegal" to describe the undocumented. It was shameful and embarrassing. And you can tell all the apologists for her on social media because they are the life-long Democrats making excuses for her use of the term - taking away our ability to be critical of those candidates that have used that ignorant term. But with Margo and Saucedo in the ra...

The D7 race was the last one live streamed on KTSM and it was interesting because it exposed Henry Rivera for being extremely weak on policy. Rivera rarely makes forum appearances, I have been looking for the guy to show up at a forum but his new wife Dora Oaxaca keeps him under pretty tight wraps. When he has a scripted answer Rivera is able to stumble and stammer his way to an attack on Limón but his presentation kills his own attack lines. It was painful to watch. When he's asked a question Dora hasn't given him the script for, its a disaster and he never knows the answer. The comment section was great because Rivera's supporters were all over it, although I was disappointed that I handed my number out and none of them called me like they said they were... Anywho, I saw that he and Emma Acosta's campaign were teaming up in the valley over the weekend (Dora Oaxaca runs both campaigns) and trying to leave material for both campaigns. That is the dumbest thing an organi...

I don't understand why some of you got your chones in a bunch over the fact that the El Paso Times chose not to endorse candidates in a couple of races. It makes no sense. Do you people live under a rock? Pretty much the only people on planet earth that don't understand that prevailing thought of most of the electorate is that all the candidates basically suck is the Saucedo campaign. The mayoral candidates are basically un-endorsable. Lets do a quick run through of the major candidates: Emma Acosta - she's accomplished basically nothing other than to advocate for an obscene pay raise to City Manager Tommy Gonzalez, led the push for Larry Romero to keep cashing a tax-payer funded pay check while he was out on a golfing trip even though he wasn't going to work anymore and tried to make government less open to the people. The one factor that is getting her any votes, she's a Democrat. David Saucedo - Seriously, there is a level of dumbfuckery in his campaign that can...

In one photo the reason people think Saucedo is a cocky douche-bag is perfectly captured. I don't recall a mayoral candidate ever doing this before. It underscores that his entire campaign is centered around his ego and narcissistic attitude. Whether it was his boxing commercial with the weird luchador, this magazine cover, or how he constantly refers to when he gets elected, not if he's elected, he will be the youngest in the history of El Paso and the youngest Latino mayor of a major American city. Me, me, me, me . And that crystalizes my frustration with this election. There is no candidate who's basic message is you, you, you, you . We need a people-centered mayor, not an entitled child of privilege with a messiah complex.

Its the most bizarre mailer I've ever seen. One side, is downright creepy. The other side is downright silly. Embattled City Rep Jim Tolbert, who may end up being re-elected despite a cloud hanging over his head with an on-going criminal investigation by law enforcement. Okay lets start with the weird side. What is with putting a picture of your opponents, and then not putting a picture of your opponents by blurring them out? Thats not me blurring them out by the way. It was sent out like that! Also, how much of a hypocrite is Tolbert? He was a blogger himself! What are they in the witness protection program or something? So weird. This is when campaign staff should save the candidate from themselves. Then there is the other side. You should wear boots to protect your feet from all the bullshit falling off of that side of the mailer. For the life of me I don't know how he can say some of the stuff he says with a straight face. Several times he talks about factions, not being a ...

Morgan took $500 check from Republican Mayoral candidate Dee Margo For some reason candidate for mayor Dee Margo donated money to Sam Morgan's campaign. Sam Morgan has listed as his top achievement the rebirth of the Northeast Democrats. He has been endorsed by the Northeast Democrats and the Black El Paso Democrats. The donation to Morgan's campaign wasn't the only donation that a Democrat has received from a Republican. Its quite common-place in El Paso. That, in and of itself, its that much of a big deal. But what does underscore the controversy of the donation is that Margo is running for mayor. Morgan is in the back pocket of Max Grossman and his Do-ruhn-geee-toe click, but Dee Margo is 100% in favor of the downtown arena. That is interesting, but still not the most controversial thing about the donation. The most controversial thing about the donation is that he hasn't given it back to Dee Margo yet. Sometimes an unsavory person donates feria to your campaign. Hap...

I was checking out Jaime Barceleau's website and I came across a list of people that have endorsed him. I mostly thought it was funny because he did what I expected him to do...he listed his spouse as an endorsement. I wonder if the endorsement still stands? But as I looked more closely I noticed something that was actually pretty damn interesting to me. As you can see in this screen shot I highlighted the name of Senator Jose Rodriguez. Well Rodriguez and his wife are pretty opposed to the downtown arena. Carmen Rodriguez is one of the main people circulating a petition against the arena. The senator has come out against it. One of his staffers wrote an editorial piece about it last week calling for it to be moved somewhere else. But Barceleau is one of the very few people running for office who publicly supports the arena in the current location. He's been pretty adamant about it. How adamant? Remember this video?

If you've never seen her in action, it is a sight to behold. She's such a bad candidate.... (How bad is she?) She's so bad of a candidate that you would think she was running for mayor! Ba-dump-bump chhhhhh. I start with a joke because Dueñez, as an elected official is a total joke. She has plagued the school board in Ysleta for a long time with petty crap and has taken some really bad votes. Here's what I mean. She has a clique of friends that actually script questions for her to ask during a meeting. If you watch video of meetings, you can see her read off of her script. She berates staff in public and does so to embarrass them. That has had a tangible impact on morale around the district office and throughout the district. Which is unfortunate, but the real impact has been on the Riverside area. During the last bond, Eastwood, Bel Air, Ysleta and Parkland areas all go significant investments in their infrastructure. Riverside got significantly less. Dueñez has gone o...

Well with Early Voting starting next week we are starting to see things heat up and some people are gettin' ganagsta with it on the campaign trail. Expect to see things heat up in every race this week. It ranges from just a little competitive campaigning, to sharp messaging, to a spouse and elected official unleashing a personal attack on her husband's opponent. Here's a shot of Shane Haggerty block walking, which I assume was recently. Even when he's trolling he's polite. Team Man-Bun is gonna be pissed, but I was able to get my hands on what looks like a draft of a mailer that has or will soon, be hitting mail boxes. I don't know if this is one or two different mailers. At first I thought the bottom one was a picture of Jim Tolbert, but its actually Dee Margo with a little tiny baby Trump on his shoulder. The El Paso Democratic Party and the Tejano Democrats also got into the mix and created an ad that is floating around social media that apparently shows that...

Two candidates for the seat left vacant by Cortney Niland have emerged. There will likely be more, but in the mean time Gilbert Guillen and Cissy Lizarraga are both considering a bid for the seat once the filing window opens. What is interesting is that both candidates have the capacity to raise money, or self-fund. Its been a while since a Latino candidate in the area could do so. Both names are probably familiar to you, Gilbert Guillen is one of the key property owners in the on-going controversy over the downtown arena location. The challenge for him is that he has to have a message other than just Duranguito, Duranguito, Duranguito, if he wants to really get the support of voters on the westside to vote for him. Cissy Lizarraga is the spouse of Judge Marcos Lizarraga and has been active in the local Democratic Party for years. Lizarraga beat an Hispanic female for his seat the first time and the campaign was a family affair. So Lizarraga has campaigned before and has a frame of ref...

Lots of odds and ends today and lets do this one potpourri style. First, Jud Burgess is a big baby. If you missed Channel 9's debates they are doing on the municipal candidates, you should watch them on FB. They are great and they are really making an effort to cover local campaigns in a way that TV in town has never really been committed to, so kudos to them. Every day this week they will be doing a different race, so last night was D2 - tonight is D3 - tomorrow D4 - and D7 the next night. Last night Jud Burgess was having his way with Jim Tolbert. He nailed Tolbert and the station didn't let Tolbert get away with that they have been telling people at the door about how there's no problems with Tolbert because the ethics complaint was thrown out. They put that issue to rest pretty well, though I fully expect Tolbert to go back to that message at the door when no one is looking. Burgess even did a good job of nailing Tolbert on the fact that he destroyed public records when...

This is an almost cyclical story, but there must be some sort of District 2 curse. The field if candidates in District 2 isn't stellar either. Not as bad as the mayoral field, but there are some problems for all three candidates. Jim Tolbert rides into office on an ethics complaint. As soon as he is in, he's involved in a series of controversies right away - steakgate, assholegate, and then ends up in a position worse than Larry Romero and he's now the subject of an investigation by the Texas Rangers. One of his opponents Jud Burgess, is trying to do the same. He's trying to ride into office on, you guessed it, on an ethics complaint. The ethics complaint turned into an on-going investigation by law enforcement. But the Curse of District 2 apparently has struck Burgess. In the recording I aired last Friday, Jud Burgess admits he spent $1000 fighting the bond. And that means that Jud Burgess failed to properly disclose his political expenditures - leaving him open to an ...

This isn't illegal. It's just straight-up stupid amateur kid games. This is a recording of an altercation between campaign staff that involved the camps of Tolbert and Annello but Jud Burgess was largely the catalyst. The consultant for David Saucedo / Jim Tolbert / Sam Morgan, Chris Hernandez got busted posing as a concerned citizen at a forum and didn't disclose that he was actually an operative of Jim Tolbert. I'm told he did the same thing for Sam Morgan at a candidate forum in the northeast in which he led an attack on Diana Ramos. The game being played here is an old one. You plant someone in the audience to ask a softball question for your candidate or to whack the opposition. Not illegal, just sorta dirty pool. But mostly, it's just stupid. Normally you get someone no one will recognize, not an operative that loves attention. Which is Chris' problem. He forgets the candidate should get the attention, not the VAN monkey. So here's what happened - Hern...

Well I made fun of yet another mail screw-up by Forma a while back, and one done by Jaime Barceleau as well, so I guess its only fair I mention everyone's. Shocker...its David Saucedo. Someone explain to this genius that the city has PD and the County has the SO. But hey, maybe Saucedo is giving up and has his eye set on County Judge or something. Why else would his campaign team pull a Forma and send mail outside the area he's running in? Yep, unless he's running for Mayor of Socorro, they screwed up. And by they, I mean whoever did his mail universe. The Easter "Bun"-ny. See what I did there? What makes it more funny is that he addresses the mail piece, "Fellow El Pasoan". I wonder why he didn't use "World-Famous West Texas El Pasoan"?

Republican mayoral candidate Dee Margo referred to the border wall as a "freedom fence" last night when asked a question about President Trump's proposed border wall during KTSM's broadcast of the debate hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. In the same answer Margo also refers to "riffraff" and "illegals". Calling the border wall a "Freedom Fence" is a level of ignorance normally saved for a White House press briefing. Its right up there with "Holocaust Centers". Margo also referred to Mexicans tangentially as riffraff, although refrained from calling them street rats. Sorry, I have kids, I often make a lot of Disney references. A lot of conservatives love the term illegals and use it like some kind of racist badge of honor, but really its just being ignorant. The term illegals is incorrectly used to try to dehumanize the undocumented. No human being is illegal because its not illegal to exist. There are lots of things people do t...

Candidate for Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees Leila Melendez was featured in an article by the El Paso Times recently that centered around her contributions. Specifically a check she took from someone who was in the public corruption scandal, Bernardo Lucero, Jr. Lucero was involved in the bribery movida with Sal Mena. Click on this link to go to the story in the El Paso Times . As you can see, there is this really interesting little tidbit in the article. In an interview with the Times on Friday, Melendez said Lucero is a friend of her husband's. She said she didn’t know about the corruption case. There's a few things that should be of major concern in those couple of sentences. First, her husband is friends with a guy involved in a bribery scandal? And second, and much more disturbing about a school board candidate...she didn't KNOW about the corruption case? Are you kidding me? I don't know whether to be angry or laugh. This lady is trying to s...

Morales (L) Ramos (R) I wrote the other day a short line about how there are a few candidates that are on this ballot, or on an upcoming ballot, that haven't lived in El Paso very long - or doesn't at all in the case of one of them. Frankly, I don't think I really did that topic much justice and I think it needs it's own post. Two of the candidates that are running in this current election that have a major problem with how long they have been in the area are Elisa Morales who is running for mayor and Diana Ramos who is running for the seat in the Northeast area. Both candidates have benefited from the fact that no one has really called them out about this issue. Well one of the Chris Hernandez slate of candidates, Sam Morgan, has tried to but he's done it so sloppily and aggressively, and hasn't done it in mail, that he's almost helped Diana Ramos gain sympathy. Before I go on, I should say that both Ramos and Morales are solid candidates and I don't be...