So word on the street is that several candidates for the mayoral elections will be making their formal campaign announcements following the presidential election.
What is most interesting is that rumblings about who is going to be running for mayor. By my count, two city council reps and perhaps a third will be running for the seat. Acosta is running for sure. Dora Oaxaca has not exactly kept that a secret. Carl Robinson is likely to run, if for no other reason that he's termed out and will have some time on his hands.
Also hearing that a third candidate from council is considering a run - which would be a big development because it would mean a massive fault line in a the money folks. Not exactly sure if that one is really gonna happen yet but I'll update you when I get something more definitive. Sufficed to say the rumblings are loud enough for me to actually mention it.
Frankly, I don't get why anyone from council would want to run for mayor. Forma Group is going to have a field day in terms of negative mail against those candidates on behalf of their candidate.
Those mailers practically write themselves.
I mean I get it when people like Saucedo want to run for mayor. He doesn't know any better and thinks family money can get him where he needs to be. The reality is that when no one knows you and you run for office, its always smarter to run for a smaller, more manageable race first to develop a base before running city, county, or statewide.
But what I don't get about the sitting city reps thinking about running for mayor is that they already know that the mayor post isn't all its cracked up to be. Unless their specific goal in life is to run for the sake of being able to exert some control over the city manager and/or city attorney, it doesn't make any sense to run for a position you know isn't as strong a city rep job. The city rep position actually gets a vote. Sure, the mayor gets the photo op and the title, but that doesn't even get you good parking at UTEP games.
Moving on to the district races, not sure what is going on in the district 3 race but looks like there will be a candidate announcement at some point after the November election and before 4th of July next year. I'm being sarcastic obviously. There will be an announcement and until that time Jaime Barceleau will have to keep praying his rosary that he can remain relevant.
In district 4 YISD Board of Trustees President Shane Haggerty will make it official after the election but he's already been semi-official. He has attended a few events, met with a couple unions, and spoke to a veteran's group recently, so expect him to announce fairly quickly.
Speaking of campaigns, I ran into an old buddy of mine, Jay Desai. We haven't really had a chance to talk in a couple of years but we talked for a couple of hours the other day and caught up on a lot of interesting stuff and recent developments. Shared a lot of good laughs with that guy over the years. Genuinely a good guy. Its nice when you can pick up right where you left off with old friends. We were roommates at the '08 convention in Austin. That trip has given me the entire Obama administration worth of good bar stories!
Anywho, looks like the municipal election cycle is going to be super interesting!
What is most interesting is that rumblings about who is going to be running for mayor. By my count, two city council reps and perhaps a third will be running for the seat. Acosta is running for sure. Dora Oaxaca has not exactly kept that a secret. Carl Robinson is likely to run, if for no other reason that he's termed out and will have some time on his hands.
Also hearing that a third candidate from council is considering a run - which would be a big development because it would mean a massive fault line in a the money folks. Not exactly sure if that one is really gonna happen yet but I'll update you when I get something more definitive. Sufficed to say the rumblings are loud enough for me to actually mention it.
Frankly, I don't get why anyone from council would want to run for mayor. Forma Group is going to have a field day in terms of negative mail against those candidates on behalf of their candidate.
Those mailers practically write themselves.
I mean I get it when people like Saucedo want to run for mayor. He doesn't know any better and thinks family money can get him where he needs to be. The reality is that when no one knows you and you run for office, its always smarter to run for a smaller, more manageable race first to develop a base before running city, county, or statewide.
But what I don't get about the sitting city reps thinking about running for mayor is that they already know that the mayor post isn't all its cracked up to be. Unless their specific goal in life is to run for the sake of being able to exert some control over the city manager and/or city attorney, it doesn't make any sense to run for a position you know isn't as strong a city rep job. The city rep position actually gets a vote. Sure, the mayor gets the photo op and the title, but that doesn't even get you good parking at UTEP games.
Moving on to the district races, not sure what is going on in the district 3 race but looks like there will be a candidate announcement at some point after the November election and before 4th of July next year. I'm being sarcastic obviously. There will be an announcement and until that time Jaime Barceleau will have to keep praying his rosary that he can remain relevant.
In district 4 YISD Board of Trustees President Shane Haggerty will make it official after the election but he's already been semi-official. He has attended a few events, met with a couple unions, and spoke to a veteran's group recently, so expect him to announce fairly quickly.
Speaking of campaigns, I ran into an old buddy of mine, Jay Desai. We haven't really had a chance to talk in a couple of years but we talked for a couple of hours the other day and caught up on a lot of interesting stuff and recent developments. Shared a lot of good laughs with that guy over the years. Genuinely a good guy. Its nice when you can pick up right where you left off with old friends. We were roommates at the '08 convention in Austin. That trip has given me the entire Obama administration worth of good bar stories!
Anywho, looks like the municipal election cycle is going to be super interesting!