"𝗦𝗞𝗜𝗣𝗣𝗬," 𝗢𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗜𝗡 𝗗𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗖𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗬, 𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗧𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗦 𝗨𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗔𝗫 𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗢𝗥-𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗥 𝗬𝗭𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗥𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗦 "𝗠𝗥. 𝗪𝗢𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗨𝗟!!!"

Third Place Finisher Luis Davila Posing
with First Place Finisher Tony Yzaguirre

When I read Juan Montoya's El Rrun Rrun blog, something I do almost daily, my principle focus is "who paid Juan to write this?"

Montoya, a successful blogger-for-hire, seldom writes for free.  The articles, promoting certain candidates or denigrating others, cost money, just like the candidate advertisements on the right side of his blog page.

Six recent Montoya articles have mentioned a longshot candidate vying to unseat longtime Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre in the March 5 Democratic primary, one Luis "Skippy" Davila.

The top photo, taken after the March 5 Democratic primary, shows a broadly smiling Davila posing with incumbent Yzaguirre, a picture used in an El Rrun Rrun article in which Davila offers the full weight of his support to Yzaguirre and actually commends him on his job performance, going into great detail about the efficiency of Yzaguirre's office and that office's huge workload.

"I found out, to my great surprise, that Mr. Yzaguirre runs a tight ship and makes every effort to assist taxpayers," Davila stated.

"The office handles everything from vehicle registrations, property taxes and even liquor licenses with various payment plans to assist taxpayers.  

If you throw in the operation of the other 11 satellite offices around the county, making the services available to all county taxpayers, including the Southmost area, that's a huge responsibility," Davila continued.

Well, Mr. Davila, if Tony Yzaguirre is doing such a fantastic job with the Tax Assessor-Collector office as your carefully worded commercial implies, why did you run against him?

A couple of Juan's readers shed light on the whole process:

"So, the Yzaguirre check cleared Montoya?  First round is on you vato!

And another:

"That was the plan from the start.  Skippy was funded by Tony.  Eddie is facing a seasoned politician."

As an observer of Cameron County politics for some time now, this would not be the first time a candidate in a potentially close race recruited a longshot to sort of muck up the waters, perhaps even paying that candidate's filing fee.

Some would even call it a clever strategy.