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Who’s in, who’s out for March primary
January 03, 2010 |
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Who’s in, who’s out for March primary
By Sito Negron
Now that the candidates are set for the March 2 primary, forget everything you knew about who was running for what. Or at least some of it.
An unusual last-minute flurry of filings and reversed decisions changed the landscape just before the filing deadline hit last Monday.
“Usually there are people who wait until the last minute to make their decision,” said Javier Chacon, El Paso County Elections administrator. “But this time around we can say there were more than usual.”
At least 15 people waited until the Monday deadline to file. That includes two candidates each for state senate, county judge and district clerk, and one each for county attorney, state representative District 76, and county commissioner Precinct 2.
While many of the high-profile candidates and races were known for weeks or months, there were surprises sprinkled into the last-minute filings.
One of those sure to get attention was the entry of Theresa Caballero, a lawyer and former candidate for district attorney. She has been an outspoken critic of policies and people associated with her father, former Mayor Ray Caballero, who served from 2001 to 2003. She filed to run for county attorney, opposing incumbent Jo Anne Bernal.
Another surprise was the entry of two people against the former county attorney, José Rodriguez, who was cruising unopposed for state Senate District 29. That’s the seat incumbent Eliot Shapleigh will give up next year.
Rodriguez was alone until professor and former state representative candidate Louis Irwin and Ysleta Independent School District Trustee Liza Montelongo filed Monday.
GOP bids
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, there are Republican candidates running for several offices. The full impact won’t be felt until next fall’s general election, but that’s news in an overwhelmingly Democratic region like El Paso.
In the 2008 presidential election, for example, 75 percent of El Pasoans voted straight ticket.
For the March primary, three Republicans will fight for the right to challenge incumbent Democratic Joseph Moody in state rep. District 78. There’s also a primary challenge to incumbent Republican County Commissioner Dan Haggerty.
In the general election, GOP candidates include Tim Besco, who will challenge incumbent Democrat Silvestre Reyes for the 16th District seat in the U.S. House.
And a former Democrat, Jaime Perez, has decided he’s a Republican, and won’t challenge Reyes for a House seat, after all.
But he will run in the Republican primary for the right to face off against a Democrat to sit in the county judge’s big chair.
That chair is now occupied by Perez’s boss, Anthony Cobos, who will not run for re-election.
Even with all the excitement on filing day, it’s hard to tell if that will translate into anything more than chatter from politicians, their operatives, some civic-minded business people and the media.
“It is an election cycle with a lot of potential for engaging people,” said Richard Pineda, who teaches political communication at the University of Texas at El Paso.
“The question is whether it will really get people excited or just get them curious to watch the process unfold. Even this week, with the rush and people like Theresa Caballero putting in their names, I don’t know if that translates into public interest,” he said.
There’s also a voter fatigue that sets in after a presidential election, Pineda said. In 2008, 48 percent of El Pasoans voted in the presidential election, but in 2009, only 10 percent voted in the May municipal elections.
Still, elections administrator Chacon is hopeful. And he thinks El Paso might be closer to a sort of political critical mass.
“El Paso is growing, and we’re going to see more people participating and trying to take that challenge,” Chacon said. “I hope that is the case where we see young professionals coming home trying to make a difference for El Paso.”
Other races of note, first in the Democratic primary:
State Senate, Dist. 29
The front-runner is clearly José Rodriguez, the former county attorney and a long-time friend of outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh.
Rodriguez is popular and knows how to win a countywide race. But he has two challengers who themselves have some electoral experience.
Louis Irwin, now a retired UTEP professor, ran for state representative District 76, losing to Joseph Moody. Irwin also is a political analyst and writer who posts material at riogranderift.blogspot.com.
Liza Montelongo is an Ysleta School District trustee, who frequently finds herself in the minority against a bloc led by school board president Marty Reyes, sister-in-law of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes.
State Rep, Dist. 76
Incumbent state Rep. Norma Chavez is widely considered safe in the seat she won with 70 percent over Marty Reyes in 2006. But challenger Naomi Gonzalez, an assistant county attorney, may have learned some lessons about working the ground from her unsuccessful run for city representative in the 2008 special election.
The other candidate is Antonio “Tony” San Roman, a former El Paso Community College board member and a financial services consultant.
County Judge
With Larry Medina out, the two front-runners have to be Veronica Escobar, the current county commissioner for District 2, and Sergio Coronado, a candidate for the position four years ago and a Canutillo school board member who has been campaigning since the summer.
The third candidate is Rick Ledesma, an insurance agent who run as a Republican for Congress.
District Clerk
This one is the most complicated, and usually does not garner much public attention, although as the person in charge of court records, the position is a vital one.
There are six candidates, including incumbent Gilbert Sanchez.
He’s fighting to keep his job at the same time he is fighting federal charges of corruption.
His challengers are: Connie Telles-Odom, a drug court coordinator who previously has run for the position; Rosa Cervantes; Norma Favela, who is chief deputy tax assessor-collector; Gilbert Pinon; and Jeremiah McCrimmon, a project manager for Raytheon and a former employee of the district clerk’s office.
County Attorney
There are only two candidates, but one of them, Theresa Caballero, packs enough controversy to make the two-candidate race a melee.
Jo Anne Bernal, the incumbent, has not run in an election. She was the long-time first assistant to Rodriguez and was appointed to her position when he left to run for the state Senate.
Caballero is friends with Stuart Leeds, the attorney appointed by County Judge Anthony Cobos to chair the Ethics Commission. Caballero she has taken up Leeds’ signature issue – that the county attorney ought not be advising the commission.
In the Republican primary, key races include:
State Rep, Dist. 76
Three candidates are looking to take the seat back from the Democrats.
They won it two years ago, when Dee Margo, who is also in this primary election, knocked off former incumbent rep Pat Haggerty. But then Margo lost in the general election to Democratic Moody.
The other candidates are Jay Kleberg, a real estate executive on leave from the Verde commercial development group, and L. Rene Diaz, who on his Web site states that he recently completed a business management degree from the University of Phoenix.
County Commission,
Pct. 4
Incumbent Dan Haggerty is facing a challenge from David Karlsruher. Also known as David K, he’s a former radio talk show host and author of refusethejuice.typepad.com. The blog mostly addresses local politics in an irreverent, aggressive and often over-the-top manner.
Haggerty, for his part, is known for his colorful and irreverent quotes.
But the race may turn to policy, not personality, as Karlsruher has in interviews said he plans to focus on the issue of consolidation, and he promises to post a complete platform on his blog soon.
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