Margo Calls Border Wall "Freedom Fence"

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 that are against the law - but the term illegal is exclusively applied to the undocumented. Why? Because racism, thats why.

And the way Margo makes it sound like such a great and magical wall that whimsically makes music as that West Texas wind Marty Robbins talks about makes its way through the fence.

As long as it ain't Mes-kins, amirate?

The Margo gaff is potentially a pivotal point in this election. Under most circumstances it would be the end of a candidate, but the unique nature of this field of candidates means that Margo's demise is not exactly a foregone conclusion.

Under any other circumstance a wealthy white Republican with a drawl that would use a negative term against the undocumented while running for mayor of a border town would be toast. But this election cycle has a terrible field of candidates, which is how Margo was ever in the driver's seat in the first place.

Margo isn't polling in the 40's on the strength of Republicans. He doesn't get that high without a significant number of Latinos and Democrats willing to support him despite his Republican pedigree. But they were holding their nose to vote for him because lets be honest, no one trusts Acosta and Saucedo is an arrogant douche.

But Margo's comment will make it a whole lot harder for those people to hold their nose for Margo. Anecdotally I've talked to a lot of people who basically gave up on voting for Margo when they saw the forum last night.

And that is actually something that is pretty key. Margo is very lucky that the remark came after the televised broadcast ended. The remark was made during the Facebook Live stream portion of the debate. But sources at KTSM tell me that their traffic was very high during the Facebook Live feed.

The point is, video of it exists. A remark like that is a negative mailer waiting to happen. Frankly the only one that can leverage the message right now is Saucedo. He's the only one with any money left to slap that on a piece of mail and send it to everyone with a Spanish surname in the 915.

Actually, if it were my candidate, I would send that to voters with reliable Democratic primary voting history and reliable municipal voting history - that would give me the most bang for my buck. I wouldn't waste a single piece of mail on this topic on anyway without Democratic voting history.

Margo was already a bit of a lightening rod and was drawing protests. Now its gonna get much worse. The electorate is thirsty for someone brown that they can like and right now, they really don't have that candidate since Saucedo and Acosta are doing so poorly. But Margo gave them the next best thing...someone they can despise.

So who benefits most from any fall-out this might create. Well, there are a big group of people who will probably just sit this one out - and maybe you can get them to come out for the run-off.

Maybe.

Saucedo has never come out against the border wall himself. He brought Lou Holtz, an anti-immigrant Trump supporter to town and when it was reported Saucedo called the backlash political correctness run amuck.

And oh yeah, he's just as much of a Republican as Margo. Hell that guy is on a plane right now to go get him some Dallas big-oil money as we speak.

So what about Acosta? Well, how the hell is a two-term city rep and only credible Latina candidate running in a field of Republicans in a Democratic city like El Paso end up running third in the polls? Because people don't like or trust her.

This mistake on the part of Margo has the potential to be the turning point, but the candidates have to leverage it effectively and tick-tock...time is running out...