The Losers - The 2018 Primary Edition

I know, this image looks like a movie poster for the lamest villains in a (mostly) Chicano version of Infinity Wars.

It is impossible to write a piece about losers in this election cycle without talking about the absolute biggest loser of them all, Carlos Sierra or Renegade Public Relations.

The Republican operative who has since burned so many bridges that he can pretty much not get anymore work with Democrats that were hiring him at one point, went all-in on this cycle. 

Sierra’s misnamed PAC went from creation, to most hated political entity in town, to complete joke all in one election cycle. It looks like Sierra started the PAC because he has to work as the Lone Ranger because, well no one wants to be associated with him, and clearly with good reason. 

Make no mistake about it Sierra was all-in for this cycle and he didn’t care how much he ruined what little dignity he still had left. It was political jihad and I guess he figured he would strap a political bomb to his chest and take people down with him. 

But it was more like he tied a cherry bomb to his balls and set it out. It was loud and bloody, but the only one that felt any pain was Sierra. Everyone else just laughed and thought to themselves, what the hell was this vato thinking?

The most interesting part of all of this is the fact that he broke a lot of rules along the way and even by breaking the rules, he still wasn’t able to be effective. 

So when Carlos Sierra is not getting his ass whooped outside of a Journey concert by some white boy on a volleyball scholarship at UTEP, he’s busy getting his ass whooped in campaigns.

Carlos Sierra was seriously a big joke in the end. Even his little tag line ended up being a used against him. That guy foolishly started fights on social media and was bombarded with people who couldn’t stand him or his tactics. I mean they pounded the guy into submission. To the point that eventually he was just responding with a kissy-face emoji.

This leads to an important lesson for people to learn - if people continually lose, why the hell do you hire them?

I think he can probably kissy-face those opportunities goodbye. 

We good?

Dori Fenenbock et al

No one who lives in the real world spends $300,000 of their own money on a congressional race to only get 20% of the vote and still not make a run-off thinks it was money well-spent. 

I say et al because this screw up was certainly a team effort. If she doesn’t see it now, I’m sure Dori Fenenbock has looked back and realized there were a lot of people that were there to pretty much milk the campaign dry and she doesn’t really have much to show for it. 

That entire staff belongs on this list, if for no other reason that they should be embarrassed at having spent that much money and yielded almost nothing. 

The Reyes’ went all personal with this race because they still aren’t over losing to Beto O’Rourke and word around the campfire is that some long-time friendships were broken up over this race, which I guess makes Dori the Yoko Ono. Anywho, a long time ago I asked the rhetorical question of what Veronica Cintron was actually getting paid to do since I knew Dori had lost her big shot consultant and Chris Hernandez was doing field. 

I wonder even more now. 

But et al also means her allies at EPISD that if you have noticed, sure have piped down since Dori lost haven’t they? In the opinion of many Hatch, Cabrera, Mickey Loweree, and the rest of the crew politicized their seats on EPISD to try to cause problems for Escobar. 

Cabrera filed a grievance against Trustee Byrd and we recently heard he thinks she's discriminating against him because he's brown. Which is weird because well, he was supporting the white chick in the race and Susie was supporting the Latina. But that clique had the nerve to point the finger at Byrd, who never once made her support for Escobar some kind of secret, while those hypocrites went to Fenenbock’s announcement, set up and ran social media pages for her, and denied participating in political activities. Hell, there were multiple accounts of Cabrera allegedly campaigning for Fenenbock and he was included inexplicably on an email about a union endorsement. 

Even political organizations weren’t able to get off the Titanic. The Northeast Democrats look corrupt as all hell because their president attended Dori’s announcement, wore her t-shirt, and then they held an endorsement meeting before the filing window had even closed. 

They even supplied the questions to Fenenbock in advance, a fact that came to light because Chris Hernandez starting complaining that things weren’t going according to script.

Then the Tejanos, who revoked an endorsement from a candidate who had apparently disparaged Latinos by referring to us as “Mexican” but turned around and endorsed a white woman who bragged about beating Mexican American opponents for school board - over four other candidates that are actually raza.

Seriously, this campaign was one giant cluster fuck. 

Forma Group

Team Forma had another rough election cycle. I don’t know if any of their clients actually won, but their main client for HD 75 lost and lost in pretty dramatic fashion. 

On paper their candidate for HD 75 was everything Chente Quintanilla (their last candidate for that seat) isn’t. Smart, attractive, young, articulate, and Latina/Native. They were well-funded too. 

And yet despite such a huge upgrade in talent in terms of a candidate, they still basically produced the identical poor results as with Chente against State Rep Mary Gonzalez. 

They did’t manage to get a candidate in the congressional race nor in the county judge race that I am aware of, although I think they did a small amount of work for Samaniego recently. 

So the fact that they didn’t have a strong performance in the one big race they had is really problematic for them. 

Norma Chavez

She’s on this list not just because of how incredibly bad she performed in the congressional race, but also because there is no longer anyone around her that is protecting her from her conspiracy theories. 

I mean one day you are running for congress and the next you are posting on Facebook about poses that allow you to release trapped gases from your body.

Seriously, that happened. I’m not making that up.

Norma’s end of her political career came decisively. She got her ass kicked a madre. And in typical Norma style, she couldn’t just go away quietly and gracefully. She has to once again demonstrate that special little problem common in only children, she threw a tantrum because she thinks the world revolves around her. 

It was just the fact that she lost that puts her on this list. It wasn’t even how badly she performed that puts her on this list, although its part of the reason. Its the stupid court case. 

It was Norma’s ego that put her in this race and its her ego that won’t allow her to let it go. When she ran for the congressional seat, her reason for running was 100% all about Norma. She felt it was owed to her and this was her shot to get that brass ring. 

And when she showed up in the final results with such an embarrassingly bad performance, well thats when her ego kicked in. Her ego couldn’t allow her to understand she was soundly rejected by voters. 

No, it just had to be some conspiracy afoot that was keeping her from her prize. That is the only explanation for her performance that her brain could wrap itself around. And so she and her tag team partners devised a plan to file a frivolous lawsuit. 

And who does she attack in the lawsuit? 

Raza. 

It was a completely baseless claim and someone who should be doing everything in her power to improve voter turnout in this community did the opposite. And who are the people that are the most disenfranchised when someone like her undermines their confidence in the voting system?

Raza. 

To complete the parallels between Norma and Trump, this lawsuit thing is her birther issue. 

But knowing that massive ego of hers, watch Norma run for something else. 

Mark.

My.

Words. 

Chris Hernandez

Chris Hernandez talked a lot of shit after election night, so I need to set the record straight on a couple things. Affectionately referred to as “the Dollar Store Mike” by other field operatives in town, which is a reference to Mike Apodaca, Hernandez is on the loser list, but he’s also a winner. 

Not because of judicial races he says he won, but for a reason I’ll get to a little later. 

Chris candidly called himself the Tony Romo of local elections, referring to not ever being able to win the big one. I’d say he’s more the Quincy Carter of El Paso politics, but thats neither here nor there. 

To an extent, its not all his fault Dori lost. Chris just has a way of picking up TERRIBLE candidates. That is a direct result of the fact that Chris Hernandez doesn’t have a particular set of political values or code he abides by. I mean even Carlos Sierra has people he won’t work for, but Chris pretty much goes where the money is. As I said in a video on Facebook, he’s like a stripper in the VIP. Enough money and well, pretty much anything is on the table. 

Which is why for the life of me I can’t understand why he was crying on election night. Aside from the fact that I don’t understand crying at an election loss (though its common and I have seen it plenty of times, so he’s not a freak or something. Its just not something I would ever do.), I can’t get the emotional attachment. Like I said, he goes wherever he’s paid, so its not like some really devoted Hillary or Bernie supporter that was really emotionally invested in the candidate they believed in. 

Its all a paycheck for him. 

So I thought maybe it was pride in his work. I could see someone, even if they are in it for the money, being pretty emotionally invested in their reputation and the quality of their work. But he knew Fenenbock was polling low. He knew that there were polls going around that had Escobar not only above 50%, but approaching 60%, which admittedly I didn’t believe myself. But he’s been around the block. He knew he was working for someone with very little name ID, almost no base, and a terrible message. He knew that, so her loss shouldn’t have come as that big of a surprise. 

The only thing I can think it was, was the fact that he charged Fenenbock a TON of money and there was essentially no return on that investment. Even if you subscribe to the idea that they hit all the doors they say they hit (multiple times), there is still some expectation that your field work will yield a positive result. Otherwise, why on earth would you pay someone to do it?

Your field people are the ones that can tell you if your message is working or not. They are the ones that can tell you if you’re liked or not, or if you’re known or not. They know how things are going to go before anyone else, including the candidate. 

Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I knew we were gonna lose the race I was running. People thought I was being modest, but I knew it wasn’t going well. Chris should have told the campaign that most people didn’t know Dori or had a negative opinion of her, because that was the feedback he was getting at the door.

If he didn’t, then shame on him. But I think he did tell them and they just didn’t listen. Which further perplexes me because why on earth would you pay a lot of money (and he made a shit ton off Fenenbock) and not listen to him?

So why is he a winner? Well, aside from winning some down-ballot races, he’s a winner because no matter how often he picks the absolute douchiest candidates to work with, he always finds a way to get someone else with a big budget to hire him. 

You gotta respect the salesmanship if nothing else. 

Lately he's been crying on Facebook that he isn't getting work and blames Congresswoman-elect Escobar for him not getting work, referring to her as being "vindictive" against him. I don't think she thinks that much of him to actively work against him. That would imply that Escobar thinks two things 1) that he's effective and 2) that she sees him as a threat. I don' think either are the case for her. I just think Hernandez hasn't realized that there are consequences in this line of work and well, you reap what you sow. 

Ruby Ramirez

Another election cycle, another incident of big promises, delivering nothing, and people wanting to fire her before the election is over. 

Somehow still gets work. I just don’t get it. Why do you candidates do that to yourselves?

Me

Yep, I deserve to be on this list and frankly, I’m the only one around here that would have the balls to put his own name on the list. It was a small down ballot race that should have been won. 

Unlike others, I won’t give excuses as to the loss because a loss is a loss no matter how much you try to sugar coat it. 

This one stings. No sprinkles for Lion Star.