The Day After the Election

What do we know now that the votes have been counted?

 We'll go district by district and then talk about some general themes.

District 1:

I truly thought Lilly was sunk after some well timed media bombs were dropped by Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.  However, her own sordid history softened those bombs and tended to send voters away from Lilly, but not to her.  Those votes seem to have spread themselves out among the other candidates.  Manny Hinojosa's roughly 12 percent draw kept either Lilly from almost escaping a run-off or Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third  from making this race a lot closer.  Either way Hinojosa was a big factor in the race.

Roughly 364 votes separate Lilly and Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.   The run-off is an up hill battle for Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third, who has run out of bombs.  In fact, media outlets are starting to hit back at her asking her to back up her claims.  In her KVIA interview last night Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third claims that Lilly went after her family.  When asked to elaborate, she couldn't.  Anyone who saw that saw a desperate women telling desperate lies.  My email box was full this morning and could five or six of them were on the subject of Ness' KVIA interview.  They all agreed that she comes off very angry and unable to reconcile her outlandish claims with actual evidence.  Her most recent complaints against Lilly will be thrown out rather quickly and her media strategy will be dead because the media will be tired of following her wild goose chase that ends up nowhere.  Theresa Caballero did the same thing to these news folks a while back and the general feeling is that they got burned. 

Neither candidate is going to "steal" votes from each other.  The key will be to have the folks who voted for you the first time to come out and vote for you again.  But... Ness needs to pick up votes to win - roughly her total plus half to compete. 

Rumor has it that the run-off may be a month long.  This is bad news for Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third whose base is younger and less focused.  Lilly's base is made up of 100% voters who don't miss an election.

If I were Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third I would start talking about the issues and stop throwing mud at Lilly.  It's getting to the point that people see Ness as picking on an older woman unfairly.  Old people vote - don't pick on them.  Plus there's the David K factor.  My blog is getting a tremendous amount of traffic and don't think for a second that people aren't seeing what the truth is.

As far as splitting up the votes the other candidates received... Manny voters see Ness as a liberal, so they'll break to Lilly if they even show up.  Ness will get Ware's votes if they bother to show up. Advantage goes to Lilly. 

District 5:

Mejia had all the money, all the endorsements and not a majority of the votes.  Looks like she suffers from credibility problems and didn't have the ground game Noe had.  Noe put the distance between him and Mejia on election day - early voting was much closer than the day of numbers.  Noe beat her by 100 in early voting and two hundred on the day of the election.  Those statistics play in Noe's favor.

Noe's key is Dora Oaxaca.  She turns out the vote and all he has to do is get them to come back one more time.  Mejia has to get every single person who voted for her the first time and then some.  She can't count on Sonia Brown's voters and I don't think Noe can either. 

We will have to see if Mejia's donors are tapped out or if they are still even interested.  They might think it's pointless to give anymore cash to someone who didn't finish first in the race to the run-off.

The difference may come in what comes out of some not-so-thinly veiled threats at me coming from the Mejia camp.  My buddy Jaime told me that I'd be "getting some phone calls" and he was right.  They were over the line, but not illegal yet.  However, as the anger grows and the threats continue, something will eventually have to be done to protect my family.  It's sad that certain people would take things to a point that could really hurt their candidate in the long run.  You can beat me up, tear up my property and even burn my house down while my family and I sleep, but it won't get your candidate elected.  Every election cycle people fail to realize that and I go through this crap. 

This race is just getting started as far as I'm concerned.

District 6:

Representative Holguin easily won and I know why.  Holguin votes his district's will every Tuesday and they thanked him for it.  I don't agree with his outlook on many issues, but that also means I don't agree with his entire district's outlook either.  What I think doesn't matter when everyone he represents agrees with him.   I see a new title for Holguin in the future - something like "Commissioner" or "State Representative."

District 8:

I think Niland is our next rockstar politician in El Paso.  She's a Veronica Escobar-like politician and there's no telling how far she can go. 

Niland was the first one in the race and the one who raised all the money.  That should be a lesson to all candidates - you need money and you need to be in early.   Niland was able to get her name out there and people became comfortable with her.  She looked like a winner from the start and it turned into lots of votes. 

Ernesto Villanueva proved himself to have a future in El Paso politics by hanging in there on a shoe-string budget and a limited organization behind him.  I don't agree with his politics, but if he cleans up his facebook page, attends any and all meetings, he might just win the next one.  He can talk.  He just needs to know more about the issues that will matter to him and his voters. 

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Here's what I learned most from this election.

1.  The Jesus freaks aren't to be laughed at.  None of Tom Brown's candidates won a race, but every single one of them took double digit numbers and in the races with lots of people running, it meant something.  Districts 1 and 5     would be much different races without Brown's candidates taking votes.  I'm not saying they will ever win as candidates, but Tom Brown's group will definitely get an audience with anyone who is running in the future.  If talking to Tom Brown's flock means he doesn't run a candidate in your race that could be the difference between being in a run-off and not being in one - I guarantee candidates will sit down with them.  A smart candidate in a run-off might want to start trying to get that meeting with Brown right now.

2.  Single issue candidates can't win because they're too ignorant to all the other issues.  Many of these candidates were running solely on the gay benefits issue and failed to win over voters on any other issue.  In fact, they all tried to hide their one issue fixation and spent most of their time bungling all the other issues they didn't understand.  Voters saw through the charade.

3.  The local media is lazy, dumb and willing to do the bidding of single individuals with an axe to grind.  Ness made Lilly look like satan with false accusations the media was unwilling to vet before reporting.  By the time it became apparent that Ness was a financial mess, the media was much too embarrassed to cover it at the risk of making themselves look very bad.  Highlights of the media's bad behavior center around their inability to properly source allegations of misconduct and using documents as evidence that were not vetted with anyone who'd know anything about their veracity.  Taking someone's word that an anonymous person on the 10th floor says a crime was committed, but was unwilling to report it is not what a good reporter does.  A good reporter also doesn't shove unsigned court ruling in hapless interviewees faces in an attempt at pulling of a respectable ambush.  My advice to future candidate is to whisper campaign the hell out their opponents and throw out as much fake evidence as you can.  The local news outlets are willing to believe anything and report it!  I think the worst thing the media did this election was avoid Ness' tax story.  It's a sure fire story in every news market in the country, but the local media in El Paso had to have their arm twisted to give it any thought and once they did cover it, they didn't cover it very well. 

4.  The El Paso Times endorsements aren't based on anything other than a blind draw of a name from a hat.  They don't care who they endorse and it shows in how they defend their endorsements - with the same basic non-specific babble they use every cycle.  The good news is that they no longer have much sway over the electorate and their picks are just fodder for the bloggers.

5.  Turnout is getting worse, not better.  We are becoming a group of voters who only show up for the presidential race every four years.  As the group of voters that can be depended on to vote shrinks, they become ultra powerful.  There are about 4,000 people in this city that you can call 100% voters.  A candidate would be wise to go meet every single one of them before he or she runs and craft their platform specifically to the needs of that tiny group.

6.  Candidate forums are worthless.  It's the same people at every event.  A candidate can be knocking on doors and meeting voters during the time they waste talking to the same crowd of 25 people three or four times a week.  In the next election you'll see candidates simply skipping the forums and using the time to connect with real voters - possibly those 4,000 that vote in every election.

7.  You can't beat direct mail.  

8.  Controlling the comments section of a blog or the newspaper doesn't transfer to controlling public opinion.  You're only ever really preaching to a small group of people and many of them aren't in your district. 

That's all...

Comments

[Mary]

The problem was is that everyone was beating Ann at every forum on the actual issues. So Ann deflected with theIRS hit. Lyda punched back. Then they went at it. But The reality is Lilly is very weak on the issues and she flip flops.
You know David, as does everyone, that the "unsigned" order is an actual order based on the court document BUT regardless, Lilly hasn't had the ability to be honest. We don't want to hear the bloggers or her attorneys or the handlers comments. We want candidates/representatives to be Direct.
I agree that I think most votes were a vote against Lilly so who knows where the votes and the analysis is interesting. Lilly has the older crowd but the upwardly mobile people voted for Ness. With one day to vote should be interesting.

[David K]

Mary,

you won't give up will you? Even at the risk of looking like a complete moron, you'll believe that unsigned piece of paper is actionable even after I published the final determination in the case.

I had the documents had the day Ness filed and sat on them until her bullshit claim that Ann was copying a donor list on city property.

If you want "direct" in a candidate, you don't want Ness. Just because you'll lie on camera without flinching, doesn't mean you're "direct."

[Diana]

Mary, so how are you related to Ness? Or did she promise you a job?

Lilly was right in getting an attorney for the mess Ness created. Ness is an attorney so she should have to face an attorney. Unfortunately, it seems as if Ness is not a very good attorney or even very intelligent with all the B.S. she threw around.

I will say it again, Ness is TC's twin!

[laura]

I have been reading posts on this website for a couple weeks. I feel compelled to tell you about the REAL Lyda Ness (Garcia?). I wonder what Ms. Ness’ (Garcia?) motivation is for running for City Council. Believe me folks…It isn’t because she because she wants to make El Paso a better city!! I have known and worked with Ms. Ness (Garcia?) for many years. Her work ethic is absolutely horrible and her morals are even worse. As many of her work acquaintances and “staff” can tell you, she rarely shows up to scheduled hearings and if she does, she is consistently late! She does show up to many local bars as you can see on Facebook.

The odds of her returning a phone to one of her clients is one million to one! She knocks Ann Morgan Lilly for receiving emails with upset constituents, but Ms. Ness (Garcia?) treats her clients like an ATM rather than a concerned business woman.

This business about her making innocent mistakes with regard to managing her finances is BS! She spends money like it is water without regard to any financial responsibility to her clients, her business or “staff”. She can’t even pay her rent on time.

Ms. Ness (Garcia?) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Voters: Be careful what you ask for…you just may get it.

To Mary who has commented above about an unsigned order/judgement. Where did you go to law school Mary? Grow up! NO judge anywhere can enforce an unsigned order. For all you know, Ms. Ness (Garcia?) could have drafted her own order on her own home computer. Think about it...!