Who Runs When Cook Loses?

The real interesting part of the whole recall effort is the fact that the time-line for running for mayor has been moved up - significantly.  Who is ready?  Who isn't?  And who might show up on a whim?

Nobody is ready to run for mayor at this moment.  Nobody has a team in place and fundraising started.  Maybe a few people in town are having "what if" conversations with the monied folks, but they (monied folks) don't believe the mayor is any trouble (even though he's 100 percent done for - whether you like him or not). 

Well, I shouldn't say "nobody."  I hear former state Senator Eliot Shapleigh is considering a run and current councilwoman Emma Acosta is as well.  Shapleigh has the best chance of the two.  I'm not saying he'd beat an Oscar Lesser or Beto O'Rourke (considering he loses his congressional bid), but he'd beat the pants off of Acosta.  Any of you who know about Cook's rise to the biggest office on the tenth floor, know that Senator Shapleigh played a vital role in getting him there.  He knows something about running for mayor and running county wide. However, this isn't going to be a two person race between Shapleigh and Acosta, so it's not worth it to handicap this race with them as the only players.

I remember the first time Beto O'Rourke considered running for congress in 2009.  It came down to him having to literally resign at a council meeting with all of about five days notice beforehand and two of of those days fell on a weekend.  Cortney Niland had expressed an interest in running for O'Rourke's seat when his term was up.  Her "expressed interest" had to turn into "I'm running" in a matter of hours once the rumor of O'Rourke's impending resignation hit the political gossip circuit.  I remember her being at council ready to announce if O'Rourke resigned.  Our conversation was interesting because she really had to just commit even though she wanted to give herself months to think about running.  I think she figured that she'd back others out of the race if she was the first to announce.  Turns out that she didn't have to make the decision early.  However, it did position her as the candidate early on and pretty much set the tone that she was the person to beat in that race.  And you must remember, this was a time when Jay Kleberg was coming off of a strong showing in a primary battle against Dee Margo and his backers wanted him in O'Rourke's seat.  Her readiness really paid off.

I think it's important to see how Niland benefited from the time to ramp up when O'Rourke didn't resign.  Any candidate pondering a mayoral run needs to decide no later than ten minutes ago that they want to run for mayor and start doing so.  They need to go talk to the monied folks, a campaign outfit like Two Ton Creativity and start acting like the next mayor of El Paso. You can't "wait and see" in this type of volatile political environment. 

You know that Pastor Brown will run someone for mayor.  That person won't win, but her or she is guaranteed at least 15 percent of the vote if not more.  That's a huge problem when you're trying to avoid a run-off.  The key here is to make it a race between you and Pastor Brown's person.  If you don't scare all other comers off now, you'll be in a 52 person race for mayor and you might not win because you'll get lost in the mix.

Here's the groups that might have a candidate:

1. PDNG will have some kind of candidate who will carry the water for their arena.  This will not be the "business candidate" because the real business community no longer really participates in PDNG. It's just an arm of "La Red" now and we all know the "wink wink nudge nudge" thing going on with them, right? 

2. The business candidate will be backed by the legitimate business community and you can bet he or she will be a westsider and have lots of funding.  I truly believe this person will win. 

3. The traditional democrat candidate will be an affable member of one of the bigger factions of the local democrat party.  Could be a female, might be a male, but surely Hispanic.  This person is in general a decent candidate who could easily win Acosta or Ortega's seat, but not city wide.  This person will be anti-city manager form of government.

4. The non-traditional democrat candidate will actually be a flaming liberal who has been shunned by the very conservative democrat factions in El Paso.  This person will be the "bomb thrower" and will spend most of his or her time relentlessly attacking the front-runner.  I love this candidate for the sheer insanity they bring to the table.  This person will be anti-city manger form of government.

5. Pastor Brown's candidate will be what you expect... no need to get too far into who they are, but you know they will get good a segment of the nondenominational church vote. This candidate will lean toward anti-city manager form of government.

6. The ankle-biter candidate... well there might not be one because it's kind of expensive to run for mayor and let's face it, the ankle-biters want to change things, but not at the cost of starting at the top. This person's only issue will be the city manager and how she needs to be arrested and charged with every crime ever written to paper. 

7.  The young up-and-comer candidate is always fun to watch.  Usually a male who got an education and some work experience outside of El Paso and is completely confident that they now know what's best for El Paso because they once live in Seattle.  These are the guys who think Segundo Barrio's biggest problem is not having access to free wireless internet service.  This candidate is so laughably disconnected to the people and issues of El Paso that what starts out as funny become crushingly sad in the end.  Usually these people have their souls ripped from their bodies and they move onto something else and frequently it's located somewhere other than El Paso. Although, sometimes their loss inspires them to go find their "Chicano roots" as kind of a research project on why they are so out of touch with the every day El Pasoan (that should be the name of a magazine!).

Any factions I missed?

Comments

[TexasWoman]

What you missed was who will be mayor if he is indeed recalled. That will be Ms. Lilly as she is now the Mayor Pro Tempore. Also if the recall is successful then there is about 90 days to wait to get approval from the DOJ to have an election and of course said election will be outside the normal dates for a Texas Election which again probably means getting permission to have one.

Of course elections bring up the fact that baring permission to have another special election Districts 2,7 and Mayor will be vacant until the next city elections in 2013.
Chew on that one for a moment. The ramifications of that are enormous.

[freedom works]

Recently lots of states and cities have suffered through recall elections and got it done. The voice of the people is the most important part of our freedom. We should not suppress our voices because "it will cost too much money and my gosh someone like Ann Lilly might be mayor for 90 days". Good Lord - let democracy work! People have fought and died for us to have that right.

[be careful]

Watch out DavidK! Don't pick on La Red who knows what cartel they are connected to!

[Gossip Girl]

What ever would Ann Lilly do if Suzie isn't around to tell her what the agenda items mean!

[council watch]

I don't think Susie is a fan of Ann Lilly's. Especially since Ann voted against Susie returning to the MPO board. No love lost there. There is a new queen bee on council - it's Cortney Niland - Susie is just going to fade into the background - no one cares what she has to say. Recall can't happen soon enough - even if Susie prevails - thank God she terms out!!!!!!!

[Annette]

You have missed the "NHI" faction.
Vince is running for Commissioner.
Mary Gonzales is running for HD 75. There just might be another Nieto/De Leon Mentee waiting to take on the Mayoral race.

[Tim Collins]

Vince is an NHI Alum?

[Annette]

Tim,
Yes, just like Hector H., Vince is both an NHI & Georgetown alum.

[Recaller]

Well, like many of us, I guess you were wrong too !

I thought the re-call was a sure thing.