The Trouble With Samaniego's Legacy

Under the Trump administration immigration has been even more of a hot button issue lately in politics.

And for whatever reason, it has caused a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in some leaders that have long been for immigration reform, some of them trying to make their position not sound like a completely hypocritical about-face from the rest of the political resume, a candidate with no accomplishments and who's immigration platform sounds like that of a Republican instead of a Democrat, and some former electeds backing some interesting choices that really don't make sense.

So immigration is an issue that isn't going away and will become of greater and greater importance.

Enter County Judge candidate Ricardo Samaniego. Samaniego is pretty much running on one thing, his last name. And if he is running on more than that, then his communication has been failing him because the only thing you see pushed about the guy is his last name.

Oh, and they underline the "go" in Samaniego.

Cute.

Anywho, they are pushing his last name so hard that they actually reinforce it with a tag line of "A Legacy of Service", which is obviously trying to capitalize Sheriff Leo Samaniego's last name.

The problem is running just on the Samaniego name is more than just problematic. Its potentially a big liability. What do I mean? Well just this Saturday there was an immigration reform rally.

A member of the Border Network for Human Rights, Gabriela Castañeda spoke at the rally about her personal experience with her spouse. Gabby is a friend of mine and former colleague. The short of it is that Sheriff Leo Samaniego used to conduct checkpoints that really weren't for speeding or insurance checks. There were designed to catch the undocumented.

It was some Joe Arpaio style policing before Joe Arpaio was doing it. The thumbnail of the story is that her husband was pulled over, they asked him for documents and he produced a Mexican document and the deputy called the Border Patrol and he was deported. She sees her husband only very rarely. Usually just for about 15 minutes once a year at the Hugs, Not Walls event where special permission is granted to families to meet in the middle of the Rio Grande for a few minutes. Its pretty tear-jerking stuff if you've seen it.

Breaks your heart.

Here's Gabby telling part of her story.



So for a lot of people, when they see the Samaniego name and a "legacy", that is the legacy they remember and think of. Samaniego is going to have to do more than rely on a last name if he wants to be a viable option for County Judge. He has to start talking about actual policy proposals instead of relying on a last name.

He has some time to get that done. Norma Chavez is his campaign consultant and she was part of Lizarraga's team that recently put a beat down on Carlos Sierra's candidate. Norma is a process person - now she has to be a policy person and change the message from relying on the last name to something of substance. She has plenty of time to get that done as long as Samaniego is a good pupil.