El Paso Politics

David Saucedo's mayoral campaign is hilarious. Its one disaster after another and it never stops entertaining me. I found one picture that perfectly captures Saucedo. He's a Republican and had an event were he tried to take the page of an old school Democrat, FDR. He set-up a fire-side chat event. It perfectly captures how artificial the campaign is - a Republican, taking a play from a Democrat and then...even the fire is FAKE! It never stops giving!

I know everyone is paying attention to the shit show that is the mayor's race, but since there are no candidates worth a damn in that race, and since we have a weak mayor form of government anyway, the real races to watch are the city council races. And its a lot of interesting drama when you think about it. D3 and D4 (Eastside/Ascarate and Northeast) are open seats. D2 (central) features a candidate that rode into office on an ethics complaint and is now the subject of an investigation by the Texas Rangers against a field of candidates. The winners of those races will do more to change the direction of council than a mayor will. Personally I think the qualities to look for in this race, especially given the carnival freak show we have at council now, are financial management experience and temperament. Financial management is pretty obvious, we have big dollar issues facing us and we need to make sure we have people sitting at the table that know what the hell they are doing when ...

The anti-immigrant wave that has washed over America since Trump took office, happening even in our own courts in our own back yard, has created an even bigger urgency in the mayor's race in my opinion. Immigrants in communities across this country are worried about being separated from their families. This community needs leaders with the courage to stand up to Trump's policies and actions. That is why party matters...because of crap like what is happening right now. Saucedo has never voted in a primary that wasn't a Republican one. He's a big fan of Rick Santorum. He defended anti-immigrant rhetoric of Lou Holtz. Saying he's against the stadium doesn't wash him of the anti-immigrant stain. Its just his transparent gesture to try to guess the direction of the political winds and try to go with it in order to patronize voters. He could've come out against the Holtz, Trump, and Santorum rhetoric but he hasn't. He made a video about the border that never r...

Okay I won't bore you with the video of all the debate for the D4 candidates, I just thought I'd post the Morgan thing I mentioned yesterday and a round of all the candidates answering a specific question. I chose this question because I thought it was the best question from the panel. They asked the candidates to name two things they have done specifically for the Northeast. I think its the single question that gives voters the biggest insight into the Four for Four. And here is the Sam Morgan closing I was talking about.

Sam Morgan, Shane Haggerty, Jose Placensia, Diana Ramos I have video to follow, but its a lot and takes forever to edit, render, and upload. And contrary to what my haters think, I do have other things to do. After all, being in all the conspiracy theories you shut-ins accuse me of is time consuming. I'll paint with some broad strokes here for this post and get to the video later. The main event of the night was the District 4 race, which is the northeast seat that is soon to be vacated by City Rep Carl Robinson. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single D2 candidate in attendance. If you recall, debates in the northeast are a lot of fun. Mostly because they reflect the northeast - raucous, a huge chip on their shoulder, loud, and a obnoxious. Basically like any night at a bar on Dyer - complete with people who may or may not be slightly intoxicated being loud and rude. Mayoral Candidates - Only two candidates showed up, but interestingly Republican candidate for Mayor Dee Margo didn...

In another surprise, Mayor Oscar Leeser announced on Monday night that he would not be seeking the office of the 16th Congressional District in El Paso. Congressman O'Rourke has indicated that he will be taking on Texas Senator Ted Cruz and will be leaving his seat in Congress. That has created a pretty big seismic shift among local politicos and everybody and their abuelita are lining up to make their next campaign move. Leeser has been going back and forth about not running for reelection, then running for reelection, then not running, then running for congress, then not running for congress, then running for mayor again, then not running again, and now apparently - not running for congress either. Leeser made the announcement at the Northeast Democrats candidate forum that was held Monday night. I spoke briefly with the mayor after his announcement and was supposed to find out why he wasn't running but he hasn't called me back yet. In the mean time, here's video of t...

A source at city hall indicates that district 7 candidate Gerardo Chacon has withdrawn his candidacy. Sources also indicate that he withdrew in order to support fellow candidate Henry Rivera. Rivera recently married Dora Oaxaca, Emma Acosta's controversial staffer and the architect of the now-infamous, now-defunct Gandara family political dynasty. Rivera is taking on incumbent City Rep Lily Limón, who is running for reelection after upsetting the front-running Tania Chozet in a close run-off election. Rivera is still a policeman with the El Paso Police Department and he was the money guy for the police union. Both Rivera and Chacon filed shortly before the filing deadline. It'll be interesting to see how Dora is going to be able to run his campaign and help her boss in her bid to become mayor. Its hard to manager a high-profile mayoral race where your candidate can't raise any money and a competitive high-stakes council race against a popular incumbent.