El Paso Politics

Wow, I was pretty blown away by an interview I saw on ABC-7 conducted Maria Garcia. She interviewed both Mary Gonzalez and Hector Enriquez and I think it might have been a story Enriquez might have been trying to pitch. The story was basically Enriquez going after Gonzalez because she just moved back to the district (which I wrote about earlier today) and because of her contributions from Annie's List. I thought the answer about returning to El Paso that she gave ABC 7 was much better than how she answered it at the Westside Dems Candidate Endorsement meeting. This story is the reason why people have a hard time trusting people that run for office. Enriquez said he's been serving El Paso for x number of years. If you count his term on SISD school board, then okay, that is certainly serving the community. But how has he served the community outside of that time? Coaching Tee Ball isn't serving the community. Its coaching tee ball. Apparently he has a new slogan, 100% El Paso...

I served on a panel last night for the Westside Democrats' Endorsement Meeting. Here are the contested results (I'm doing this from memory so if I miss anyone its not intentional) Congress - Silvestre Reyes by a wide margin. House District 77 - Marisa Marquez by a wide margin. House District 75 - Mary Gonzalez by one vote. District Attorney - Jaime Esparza by a decent margin. 448 - Judge Regina Arditti by a decent margin. 383 - Lisa Aceves-Hayes by a wide margin. 8th Court of Appeals - Tom Stanton in a close vote. 388 - Don Williams in a run-off. 41st - Mike Cervantes by a decent margin. Tax Assessor Collector - Victor Flores by a wide margin. County Commissioner Precinct 1 - Danny Anchondo by 11 votes. NE Constable - Rick Gammon in a close vote. Westside Constable-Richard White by a wide margin. So those are the results. Here are some awards (I'll explain them too) : Best Speakers of the Night: Luis Torres & Vince Perez. Worst Speakers of the Night (Non Judicial): Arma...

Texas Governor Rick Perry ended his bid for the Presidency today and endorsed Newt Gingrich and adding "...he's not perfect" before his endorsement. Wow, glowing endorsement there Governor.  I have a few thoughts on Perry's exit from the race, and pay attention Texas Republicans. I've been noticing something about a few local races, but the Perry exit personifies it for me. Sometimes, in our haste to vote AGAINST someone rather than FOR their ideas we latch on to anyone that comes along. Like a bad rebound relationship.  What happens with candidates is that we often build them up in our perception of them and make them more formidable than they really are. Then, when the candidate that was never really all that viable in the first place loses, the person we were voting against is actually legitimized to an extent because of our build-up of the opposition. Its true of candidates in several local races and its true of Rick Perry. When there was the initial rumors of...

Turns out there are a few issues with the advertisements that made, or didn't make, it in to the program for the Hall of Fame Dinner fundraiser for the El Paso Democratic Party. Many of the advertisements lacked the legal disclaimer lines they are supposed to have. But even more significant, some of the ads looked like a bumbled effort (almost no effort) or they had incorrect information on them. Here's a couple of examples. This is the ad for El Paso County Chairman Danny Anchondo that appeared in the program: Did you catch it? Look again. It says he's running for El Paso County Commissioner Dist. 1. He's not. He's running for Precinct #1. That might sound like a little thing and maybe it is, but its significant to me for two reasons. One, he's the head of the Democratic Party and he got something like that wrong. Two, and probably more significant, is that it could confuse voters. Trust me, older folks find technology confusing and intimidating as it is. Coupl...

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El Paso Young Democrats will host both candidates for House District 77. The challenger Aaron Barraza will be the guest speaker at this month's meeting. The meeting will take place on next Monday at 6:00pm at the G&R Restaurant. The following month, the incumbent State Representative Marisa Marquez will be the guest speaker. That meeting will take place on February 20th at 6:00pm.

Well, to borrow a line from Mark Twain, the rumors of Perez's campaign irrelevancy are greatly exaggerated. People have been down playing Vince Perez's ability to win the race for County Commissioner in Precinct 3 for quite some time now. But they may want to rethink that strategy following the release of campaign finance reports. Turns out Vince Perez can fit a lot of contributions in his suspenders. Perez raised $14,092.70, which is huge in comparison to his opponents. Quintanilla raised $3,800, $2000 of which came from PACS, before he ran for County Commissioner. Oaxaca raised $1570, and Loya raised $2350. That is a total of $7,720 that the three of them raised in this filing period. Not only did Perez out-fund raise all of his opponents combined...he almost doubled their combined contributions. Bear in mind, its very early and Oaxaca will likely get a lot of money from the Gandara's and many campaigns sand bag it for the first filing period and the real money shows up o...