Shake Up in the Parties

So turns out both local political parties have some interesting races for their respective chairs coming up.

First, last night was a pretty big shocker when Dora Oaxaca surprised everyone by announcing her candidacy for Chair of the El Paso County Democratic Party.

No one saw that coming and you could tell by the stunned reaction from the regular party members.

Obviously it goes without saying that Dora and I aren't exactly exchanging Christmas cards on a regular basis, and word on the street is her campaign treasurer is going to be Chente Quintanilla, who is also not on my Christmas card list.

Oaxaca is going to have some haters and y'all know I've been very critical of Dora over the years.

But let me put that all aside and give some brutally honest analysis of her candidacy.

Javier Aaron Paz better start taking this race seriously because Dora is going to work her ass off.

Again, while I have been very critical of Oaxaca over the years, I have faced Oaxaca in a few races as an adversary. I can tell you first hand, she never has made winning easy.

I'm gonna say something that I have no problem saying to members of the Party - and I have on multiple occasions. You don't need the El Paso County Democratic Party to win any race in El Paso.

Is it nice to have? Sure. But you don't need it.

Why?

Well for the most part, the local Party is more concerned in socializing or talking behind one another's backs than they are in rowing all in the same direction.

The reality is that the electorate vote in the Party Chair - not the Party Regulars. The Party Regulars make up less than 100 people. We don't even have all the precinct chairs filled. So regardless of how much Eddie Holguin fluffs up the numbers for Tejano Democrats membership - no club in the Party has more than 60 people that regularly participate in Party activities, which primarily are social activities.

Compare that to all the people that are going to vote in the respective primaries and you'll see that this race is essentially Oaxaca's race to lose. She knows the mechanics of a campaign and of all the shit I've talked about Dora over the years, and I've talked a lot of shit about her, you've never heard me say that Dora's not a hard worker.

Dora is going to work it hard and she's going to outwork Paz.

After the meeting Paz made a comment that he clearly wanted me to hear. He indicated that he was actually "relieved" that he had an opponent because now he was "free to call people out".

Personally, I think that is whistling passed the cemetery on the part of Paz.

But its that calling people out thing that is probably partially what led to him having an opponent in the first place.

The Party Chair is supposed to be impartial during the primaries. Its literally been the biggest problem for Party Chairs in the past. They weren't impartial and took sides in races. It never really helped a candidate and all it ever did was further division. I know I've personally mentioned that to Paz in the past and his response was also that he agreed but that he had to make an exception for this person or that person for this reason or that reason.

But he got a little blood on his hands when he intervened with the state party entity to try to cut off access to VAN, an essential campaign tool, from D3 candidate Will Veliz. That caused a major rift in the party because he went out of his way to make allegations of Veliz being a Republican and even dragged Veliz's abuelita into his movida to prevent Veliz from accessing VAN.

That left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of people because one, it was essentially unsubstantiated allegations against a candidate who has only Democratic Party voting history - and two, you don't drag abuelitas into movidas. Paz went on to make the support Veliz has from the business community an issue and used it to imply that Veliz is secretly a Republican.

Problem with that assertion is that if that support from the business community is the measure, then Paz is basically saying the same thing about Congresswoman Escobar, Senator Rodriguez, and State Reps Fierro and Blanco - all Democrats that have taken contributions from members of the business community in El Paso. All of which are people Paz supports.

Anywho, Paz's meddling in a non-partisan election while he's a candidate for Democratic Party Chair really screwed that candidate and there were a lot of long-time Democrats supporting Veliz in the Party.

The fact that Paz is now facing Oaxaca is a pretty good sign that Paz upset some people who aren't messing around.

Again, putting my criticism of Oaxaca aside, she's been involved in El Paso's political scene as long as I have, if not longer. She seemed ready for the race and came out with a plan of things she wants to do. Paz was visibly shaken and spoke after Oaxaca. She's a good speaker and Paz really isn't.

But Paz is a pretty good organizer, so I'm sure he's been working the phones trying to get support. Probably as much as he works the phones when someone he knows likes a post on my page that is critical of Iliana Holguin. He picks up the phone to reach out to people every time that happens (which cracks me up).

Like I said earlier, Paz wanted me to hear his comment about being able to call people out. Not sure what he meant by that, but calling people out hasn't worked out for him so far.

The reality is that I don't think Paz realizes who he's facing in this election. I think the comment was false bravado because he can't possibly feel like he's going to intimidate Oaxaca.

Seriously, Oaxaca has faced people far more intimidating than Paz and ate them for lunch.

Trust me, as someone who's actually been in chingasos with Oaxaca at a lower valley polling place on the last day of early voting in the hot ass sun in a hotly contested race, Oaxaca doesn't scare easy and most certainly doesn't back down.

You never know what she's going to say, but its guaranteed to be the unpolished and unapologetic truth as she sees it. That is going to shake things up in the Party for sure.

The coronation is over.

Paz has to work for it now and things are now going to get really interesting.

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The El Paso GOP also has an insurrection on their hands - and like the current chair of the El Paso County Democratic Party, there's some questionable finance issues at play.

Rick Seeberger is pursuing the GOP Chair. Chairman Telles is the current chair of the El Paso GOP and seems to have the inside track against Seeberger who is widely seen as a liability because of his really bad financial record.

He's also seen as a bit of a conspiracy theorist, so it'll be interesting to see how this race turns out. To me it looks like Seeberger is title chasing at this point. Seeberger is convinced that Escobar kicked his ass because of many reasons that are never his fault - the Party didn't support me, the machines were rigged, etc.

Interestingly, both races are going to be won on the westside.

Why? Well for the Republicans, its their stronghold.

For the Democrats, Oaxaca has name ID in the valley. Good, bad, indifferent, its a name they know. Paz has none. Oaxaca only has to work the westside and its game over. Paz is busy working other campaigns, volunteering (which is a good thing because it looks like even though he's been working other campaigns, he still manages to give of his time), etc. Its hard to see how he is going to find time to campaign for himself.