CAMERON COUNTY PARTY CHAIRS HUG IT OUT AT ANGELITA'S FOR "WHINE WITH CHEEZ" PODCAST

Cameron County Democrat Chair
 Jared Hockema, Republican Chair Morgan Cisneros Graham

Ali-Frazier it was not, but could we at least get a pillow fight 'tween our two opposing Cameron County party chairs?

My feeble pre-event joke to Whine with Cheez livestreaming moderator Erasmo Castro that we might need to separate Hockema and Cisneros-Graham, lest they come to blows, fell flat, as the two young, articulate spokespersons gamely stood up for their party's respective interests, but without the vitriol and absolute gridlock of the national players.(The county chairs explained that they work well together on the county election commission to foster smooth local elections.)

Martin & Angelita Leal, Owners of
Angelita's Casa de Cafe(Photo by
Miguel Roberts, Brownsville Herald)

The podcast, livestreamed from the eclectic Angelita's Casa de Cafe at 2200 Boca Chica Boulevard, revealed distinct differences between the local parties on palanca voting, who should hold the county judgeship, but total agreement that hardworking, law-abiding immigrants should have a "path to citizenship."

Hockema quickly defended County Judge Eddie Trevino's contention that precinct chairs not supportive of the local county judge nominee had no business at the monthly executive meeting.

"They are bound by party rules to support our candidates," explained Hockema. 

"Sure, a regular voter can support whoever they wish, but precinct chairs signed up to represent the party and its candidates," continued the Democrat chair.

Hockema favored so-called palanca voting, pulling a lever that automatically selects all of a particular party's candidates,  while Cisneros-Graham felt the mechanism was geared to favor the "party currently holding the majority."

In any event, palanca voting ends in Texas in September 2020.

Whine with Cheez Podcast 10/14/18 at Angelita's Casa de Cafe
(left to right: Jared Hockema, Morgan Cisneros-Graham,
Jim Barton, Erasmo Castro)

Next Sunday, Whine with Cheez has invited County Judge Eddie Trevino and challenger Carlos Cascos to Angelita's Casa de Cafe for a 1:30 PM podcast.

ADDENDUM:  A typical story draft of mine has some gaffes, errors and/or typos,  with a quick self-edit usually catching most.  Sometimes, I find myself using the same word twice in a single sentence or paragraph and substitute a synonym to avoid redundance.(Google frequently doesn't recognize a certain word and underscores it in red as if a spelling error.  It did not recognize the word I just used, redundance.  LOL)

In the above story, I initially used the word "wine" instead of the more clever "whine" to refer to the Erasmo Castro podcast.  After the initial publish, a reader kindly pointed out that I'd referred to Jared Hockema as the "Republican" chair, when, in fact, he's a Democrat.

As recently as a couple years ago, before Nena's health took a bad turn, I would read an article to her before publishing.  

Frequently, Nena would say something like "I don't understand what you're getting at there" to describe a particular paragraph.  When I would explain carefully what I meant to say with a bit more clarity, she would respond with:  "Well, why didn't you write it like that instead?"

Many years ago, a friend of ours in the black community in Little Rock, Bill Perkins, told me to "quit dumbing yourself down for us."

"Just be yourself," Bill said.

"We understand English."

Bill's admonition comes to mind almost whenever I'm typing something on my cheap laptop.