Lisa Soto & Poor Judgement

Every once in a while you watch a candidate step on a rake. If you don't understand that reference, you've probably never watched cartoons as a kid and are obviously no fun to be around. 

Actually, let me quit joking here for a moment because this isn't funny. Candidate for 8th Court of Appeals Lisa Soto posted a time-honored social media post today - the staged block-walking photo. Nothing particularly noteworthy about it, except that she was out with Queta Fierro, the Grand Dame of the El Paso County Democratic Party. An amazing woman who really should have a book written about her because she was a trailblazer. 

She does the invocation at a couple of the Democratic Party club meetings - virtually these days because in-person Democratic Party events are pretty rare these days.

The Democratic Party Hall of Fame was made for people like Queta. 

But we are living in the time of a global pandemic. Healthcare workers are seeing a major surge in the hospitals with some departments in some facilities being shut down because the lack of workers and nearly every department operating with short staff. Healthcare workers appear in commercials trying to urge people to get vaccinated and take necessary steps to protect themselves and our vulnerable loved ones. 

Deaths have jumped to near peak levels of the pandemic. Take a look at this screenshot of a story about our local COVID situation I took just before writing this post. 

Pay close attention to the headline. We had 26 deaths last week and 13,786 infections last week. For perspective, the Don Haskins center holds less than 12,000 people. 

Now read the blurb. Of the 26 deaths last week - 9 were breakthrough cases. Meaning the people that died - were vaccinated. 

Oh its gets more real. I know of at least three candidates currently running for office on the Democratic side that have, or have had, COVID since the end of the filing period in December. That's a little over a month ago. 

So taking Queta Fierro out block walking, which admittedly probably didn't actually happen and I'm 99% sure was just staged for a photo, is at the very least - a representation of very poor judgement on the part of Soto. 

Poor judgement is the last thing you want to demonstrate to the electorate when you're trying to get elected - to be a judge. 

And let me make something clear because I can already hear the apologists for Soto because she's popular among the political, wealthy, and elites of El Paso. (She's at the forget-arguing-my-qualifications-here-is-a-list-of-big-shots-supporting-me stage of the campaign. She mentioned a list of people supporting her at Tejanos on Saturday, so expect her to drop a mailer on that this week.)

Even if it was a staged photo - its modeling the exact kind of behavior our healthcare workers are trying to get people to stop. Again, even if it was fake - its giving the impression to others that its okay for vulnerable populations to be going knocking on doors during a global pandemic. Break-out infections are real. 

Haven't we all seen enough of this pandemic? Haven't we all had enough loss in our lives? I lost a good friend, my favorite tio, and several elders in my family. I'm far from the only one. Most of you reading this have lost someone you know. 

Yes, block walking is essential to getting your message out to voters. But you don't take the most vulnerable population out to do it - and then make a show of it on social media. 

Its just a flat-out irresponsible message to send to the community for the sake of promoting a political campaign predicated on the person having good judgement. 

Terrible judgement - but will likely be excused because thats what the elites in El Paso do - they look the other way when its someone they like knowing full well they'd roast someone they don't like for the same behavior.