The Political Pachanga Ploy

It looks like there is a genuine effort to resurrect a terrible political practice that thankfully went away after the practice was exposed - the political pachanga. 

Pachangas for those of you bilingually impaired, are in my opinion the epitome of everything that is wrong in Latino politics. Its akin to poverty pimping and its a cultural insult that it has been so widely adopted in the past. 

Pachangas are an effort to give people - typically from humble backgrounds - free food, get them liquored up - and give away something they value - in a thinly-veiled effort to buy their vote. 

If you recall, a lot of valley politicians partook of the political ploy like Chente Quintanilla, the Gandara clan, and Norma Chavez. Although in fairness to Chavez, I don't think she ever did giveaways - just food and booze. 

Well it looks like the practice is rearing its ugly head down in Sal Elizario. It appears one of the mayoral candidates Isela Reyes - who has some pretty colorful baggage that I'll save for another day - is using the Easter Bunny to get some votes. 

If this were a private person offering pics with the Easter Bunny, no hay pedo. If it were a private business doing it to give back to the community, I'd be your biggest fan. But its a campaign ploy doing the usual offering of free stuff and of course - bikes. 

For whatever reason - giving away bikes is a BIG part of political pachangas. 

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - or don't remember because thankfully the practice ended after being exposed - the Pachanga Ploy got really out of hand. To the point that one was held in a night club rumored to be connected to a Juarez cartel at the time that had free liquor flowing, free food, and a line-up of elected officials and political candidates in attendance that all bought prizes to give away. Mostly bikes, but that later became bikes and high-end electronics and eventually it got to the point act they were flat-out handing out CASH to voters. 

Here's a quick walk down memory lane for those of you might have forgotten...

It was a very good thing that this practice died after this event. I had hoped it would never come back but it appears to have been resurrected. Its a completely unjustifiable ploy and is quite frankly, shameful. There's no dressing it up behind words like "tradition" or "culture" - because corruption is not emblematic of our culture or traditions. 

Word on the street is that Eddie Holguin's Sun Circle is running the campaign for Isela Reyes, the candidate running for Mayor of San Elizario and owner of the business that is hosting the event. 

Now that I think about that - there will probably be some things to consider when filing campaign finance reports for a political event held a candidate's business. Its not illegal to my knowledge, but I wonder if sales from that day have to be reported to the campaign account considering its a political event and the owner is the candidate. Hmmm, I'm going to have to check this out and do a follow-up...

Anywho - this doesn't bode well for the people of San Elizario. In a somewhat related note - it looks like the current Mayor of San Elizario finally decided to start attending meetings of the MPO again. I have no idea if its because so many people in San Elizario heard about it and were pissed - or if its because he has an opponent now - but he suddenly decided to start attending meetings again. 

Maybe one day San Elizario will again be a voting member of such an important organization.