A public policy agenda requires that the appropriate individuals be put into public office in order to control the outcome of the votes necessary to keep the public policy in place. Managing the necessary votes also requires a candidate slate to be incubated and placed into the appropriate office. Although certain individuals will pontificate about the dangers of using candidate slates to push forth public policy, they themselves are not above doing it for their own purposes as proven by the public record.
In the upcoming race to replace outgoing city representative Eddie Holguin you will notice how the public perception is being manipulated to put a candidate in place to further the public policy agenda of spending the taxpayers’ monies to further downtown redevelopment.
As many of you know, there is a political faction being led by Veronica Escobar, who is a disciple of Ray Caballero and the current political face of Paul Foster and Woody Hunt. They have been putting forth political slates to further their public policy agenda ever since Ray Caballero was unceremoniously expelled from public office. Sometimes they have been successful and other times their candidates were not able to muster enough votes to be placed. Yet, each election cycle they continue to learn from their past mistakes and streamline their candidate slate pipeline.
The latest incarnation is Claudia Ordaz. As many of you already know she has been identified as Vince Perez’ girlfriend, and he has been vocally supportive of her run for office. You also know that Vince Perez is working with Veronica Escobar closely on the public policy agenda she has been championing.
As is common with the Escobar candidate slates, the potential candidates are incubated in preparation to running for office by being placed on jobs paid for by the taxpayers of the community. Veronica Escobar, herself, went through the process starting with Ray Caballero working at the city, then on to various non-profits financially supported through taxpayer funds and then on to elective office where she now draws her paycheck from.
Ordaz is following the same path. She is being incubated at the El Paso Water Utilities, a city entity, and is campaigning while still drawing a taxpayer funded paycheck. She, will of course, argue that she is using accumulated credits or that she is campaigning on personal time however most of you already know that someone employed in the private sector finds it extremely difficult to keep a job and campaign at the same time.
The other thing to keep in mind is that many people in the city complain about how difficult it is to land a government job in the city while many people with questionable character qualities but supportive of the public policy agenda drivers, like Jaime Abeytia, don’t seem to have the same problem. See how those dots connect?
Abeytia, works for Vince Perez. Perez is Claudia Ordaz’ boyfriend. Perez is the same individual that helps Veronica Escobar with her public policy agenda. All of these individuals are connected to each other and further a public policy agenda that is benefiting a group of individuals that is using taxpayer funds to build playgrounds for themselves. As you look through Ordaz’ initial campaign finance report, notice who her largest contributors are and how they relate to the ongoing downtown revitalization public policy agenda.
A candidate needs the money to create the necessary “name recognition” that is required for the candidate to stand out on the ballot. However, money itself does not secure the win, as opponents need to be publicly shamed in order for the name recognition to become effective. Remember, Veronica Escobar cohorts have learned from their previous failures and know they need to publicly destroy opponents to ensure a win. The last thing the drivers of the public policy agenda want is an educated electorate and therefore they resort to destroying the opponent’s public persona instead of being forced to discuss public policy issues.
This is where the El Paso Times, masquerading as a newspaper is brought into play.
You may have noticed how two articles have been recently published by the local paper about Ordaz’ opponent, Mike Armstrong? This is not a mistake. It is purposely done to destroy any credibility that Mike Armstrong has before the electorate. It is part of the public perception management by the public policy agenda drivers in order to ensure that Claudia Ordaz is put into office in order to secure the future of the public policy agenda that is taxing El Paso homeowners out of their homes.
Veronica Escobar is also not taking any chances. She publicly announced that she has filed an ethics complaint against Mike Armstrong. Although some may believe that this is out of a need for transparency in the democratic process the reality is that the timing of the filing is obviously part of a well-orchestrated attempt to keep any serious challenge to Ordaz’ campaign from someone that is not going along with the horde.
As election time gets nearer, keep an eye on how the public policy horde will continue to manage the public perception of the various candidates through well-placed news articles. Political operative bloggers aka useful idiots will now doubt be brought in, in order to ensure that Claudia Ordaz gets to avoid having to discuss, in depth, the public policy that she will likely support. This is because she clearly understands that educating the electorate will only lead to her defeat.
Also supporting what you say is the recent David Stout vs Sergio Lewis race in which Stout campaigned while being paid by the state. Stout ran a negative campaign, implying Lewis allowed EPISD corruption solely because he was on the school board when Garcia was there. And a few years ago when Susie Byrd first entered the public arena she did so by destroying the reputation of District 2 Rep Cushing for a very stupid thing he did as a youth 35-40 years ago and was unable to make restitution for because the city lost the records. (Byrd was not on the public payroll at the time, although she had been executive assistant to Caballero when he was mayor). Most politicians play the game. The progressives in El Paso play the negative campaign game very, very well. Progressives in El Paso know they cannot win on the issues so they campaign by inventing or exaggerating the weaknesses of their opponents. It thrills the EP Times to print these stories. They participated in the destruction of Cushing and refused to print any op-eds or letters in Cushing’s defense.
There is a great opportunity just laying on the table here for some bright college grads who can spell and write English (which is a challenge, given the state of education today): start a 2nd daily newspaper in El Paso to challenge the Times that has been losing subscribers and prestige for years now.
Don’t like the Hunt-Foster-Shaplite mindf**k? Start your own while it’s still a free country.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The “faction” opposed to the faction you’re complaining about puts forward a candidate with two recent DUIs, has tax liens out the wazoo because he hasn’t felt the need to pay federal income tax since the Clinton administration, has other judgments against him in the six figures, and your complaint is that a newspaper accurately reported all this? Wouldn’t the outrage be better directed at the lousy recruiting job by the other faction, or at the elected officials who are supporting such an obviously unqualified candidate?
How could Vince Perez hire a deadbeat dad, and now pervert(the porn thing) hire Jaime Abeytia ? Wondering what skeletons Ordaz might have in your closet. Plus she works at the Robber Storm Water Utility. I would take a businessman over a public sector employee any day. Even one with baggage like Armstrong.
Jaime Abeytia is bad I’d distance my self from him fast. Why does everybody ignore what he is?