El Paso Politics

"Pull my little string and I'll turn you some flips, I'm your puppet..." I'm your puppet is a great song. I hear it every Sunday on The Fox Jukebox with Mike Guerrero and whenever I DJ a gig in the valley. But when its political candidates, its not such a great concept. But according to several witnesses that attended the EPISO Forum on Sunday afternoon, it looks like Zulema Lazarin is just that, a puppet. But I was surprised to hear who the supposed puppetmaster is...Nacho Padilla. Witnesses say that Padilla was signaling Lazarin how to answer questions. Its not like there haven't been other candidates that have had handlers guide them on how to answer questions. But thats prep that is done before a forum, not during! He was literally giving her the thumbs up or thumbs down for Lazarin when she was asked questions. Now Lazarin has given us plenty of reasons to question her judgement, everything from her decision to run, the district she ran in, the creation o...

Omar Macias has dropped out of the District 5 race citing the fact that he is not living in the District at this time. He is currently in District 6 because he is house-sitting for a friend. Macias says he's lived in the district for over 10 years but due to the fact that he is currently house-sitting, he didn't want it to be a distraction. This is now the second candidate who originally wanted to run in District 5 but actually lives in District 6. Macias is not planning a run for District 6. The other candidate that didn't live in the district she wanted to run in, Zulema Lazarin , has announced that she will be taking on Holguin. She may not be in the position to quit at this point. Sources at city hall indicate that she made an interesting revelation when she was on the 10th floor. Apparently she revealed that she had to run because she had already recieved contributions. At the time she allegedly made this comment, she hadn't filed for a treasurer for her campaign ...

Zulema Lazarin, former Secretary of the El Paso Latino National Republican Coalition has decided to take on City Representative Eddie Holguin for his positon in District 6, which is made up mostly of the Lower Valley and does have a portion of El Paso's Eastside. That's a decision that has several people, some in her own party in fact, questioning the decision. Lazarin lives near the very upper boundary of the district. I ran in to Lazarin at a fundraiser for a Democrat, Isela Castanon-Williams who is running for re-election to the El Paso ISD Board. Lazarin with sitting with her spouse and Manny Hinojosa, who is a Republican precinct chair and candidate running for District 1 against Ann Morgan Lily. I wasn't expecting to see the Republicans there but since they are running in non-partisan races it makes sense that they would make the rounds at as many events as they possibly can. In light of the fact that Lazarin was going to file to run for the seat in District 5 until s...