Special to
El Rrun-Rrun
Is Steve Guerra...
(A) DINO (Democrat In Name Only)
(B) RINO (Republican In Name Only)
(C) None (or both) of the above
Answer: Probably C, or something close.
As early voting approaches for the Nov. 3 general election, Democratic Party candidate for Cameron County Judge Steve Guerra has taken to the social media air waves with a message of Democratic unity, kumbaya, and brotherhood to party loyalists to defeat Republican Party banner holder Mauro Garza.
It happens almost every election cycle. The Democrats draw blood among each other in the March party primary, then spend the rest of the year between the primary and the November election courting the support of their social media victims asking them to join hands and to let bygones be bygones.
At least, that's the way it is supposed to happen.
But Cameron County is different.
This is a county that went rouge in at least four past elections by electing a Republican county judge – two times for Tony Garza and twice for Carlos Cascos – since 1988 when Garza was first elected with the support of Democrat county commissioners. In that time, curiously, they accomplished this in four elections when the rest of the county's elected offices down the ballot went traditionally blue wave for the democrats.
Party lines become blurred, and even more so if the primary blood letting becomes too vicious. The Republican Party mascot may be the elephant, but Democrats also have long memories and sometimes are unwilling to forget perceived offenses if they feel that their opponents' attacks go beyond the red line of party civility and competitiveness.
Take, for example, recent assertions by Mauro Garza, Guerra's opponent in the county judge's race, that the Democrat sought
him out inquiring whether Garza, a Republican, would consider withdrawing from his party's primary so that Guerra could run unopposed in that party's primary without having to campaign against incumbent Eddie Treviño in the Democratic Party primary. When that failed and Garza would not withdraw, Guerra resorted to a stand-by option of running former county district clerk and sheriff Eric Garza as a "stalking horse" in the Democratic Party primary to draw enough votes from Treviño and force a runoff which he won.
Even then, Guerra garnered only 30 percent of the votes cast in the primary, Garza got a close 26 percent, and Treviño another 44 percent. In other words, 70 percent of the primary voters cast their ballots against Guerra, but Garza drew enough votes – 26 percent, almost the same as Guerra – to force a runoff which Guerra won with 55 percent over Treviño.
But it was the runoff social media campaign which left a bad taste in Democrats' mouths, and where Treviño and his supporters – (he was endorsed by the entire commissioners court and the majority of county elected officials) – were demonized and mauled by Guerra's social media operatives and hired guns.
Treviño was accused by these operatives with everything from getting kickbacks from SpaceX's Elon Musk, selling Boca Chica Beach to SpaceX for bags of money, of robbing PUB ratepayers through his firm's legal fees, taking money from el Cartel del Golfo and depicted as a rat on a leash being handled by Musk and doing his bidding. When Treviño's supporters protested, they, in turn, became the targets of his social media minions through various platforms and mauled in their cyber pages. (None of these allegations have ever been proven true, but if it sticks, well...)
(The insertion of the cartel is interesting, since Guerra is the grandson of its founder Juan N. Guerra. A diversion?)
One of Guerra's cyber gunslingers in particular, was defrocked lawman (constable) from Rio Hondo Josaphat "Hoss" Lozano, who goes by the anagram "Ozel Sonasno," and who had to give up his law enforcement certification as a result of charges of abuse of official authority, went beyond the limits of propriety and unleashed a scorched earth campaign against Treviño's supporters. Nothing was holy, and elected officials, their employees, and even innocent bystanders and their relatives were not spared from his relentless poisonous keyboard.
Guerra, of course, feigned innocence of the attacks even though
intercepted communications indicated that Lozano and Guerra were coordinating the attacks against his fellow Democrats.
Sometimes it got ugly,as when "Ozel Sonazno" attacked social media poster David Mungia and cast aspersions against his family, and both were called out by Munguia. Intercepted graphics included a photograph taken of a county commissioner's assistant helping a voter taken by Guerra and sent to Lozano to use in his attacks (right) against the commissioner and the employee.
(Since he was defrocked as a lawman, Lozano's next incarnation was of a teacher, and immediately ran afoul for throwing his weight around and has been charged with harassment of students (Raymondville and Progreso ISDs) and of making false accusations against public officials.
A former school attorney who deposed him in his lawsuit against a school district said simply that Hoss was a "bully."
More recently, this June he posted a story and photo on social media claiming a privately owned white Chevrolet Corvette was worked on in the RISD maintenance shop, resulting in a complaint being filed by RISD Police Chief Oscar Gutierrez, who is also in charge of the school district's maintenance shop.)
Undaunted, his next reincarnation was self-proclaiming himself a star "investigative journalist" to question elected officials' suspected sordid intentions. No one was spared the fury of this scorned muckraker.
Now Guerra want everyone to forget.
But will they? Take, for example, the fact that right before the primaries, Steve and his "team" were publicly courting U.S. Representative D-34 Vicente Gonzalez, and at the same time, kowtowing to Republican primary winner Eric Flores, in effect burning the candle at both ends.
Guerra, of course, denied this and vows he is a true Democrat, but photos of his campaign team, city Brownsville city commissioner Pedro Cardenas and public-funds hustler Arturo "Turi" Treviño – one (Cardenas) posing with Flores, and another (Treviño) wearing a MAGA hat at a July 4th celebration at Boca Chica Beach – give a different picture of where the "team's" loyalties lie.
But the bloodletting by Guerra's minions hasn't stopped. In recent posts Guerra's henchman "Ozel Sonazno" has sought to discredit other Democrats who haven't kissed his ring.
One notable target has been Cameron County County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez who drew their ire and was accused of allegedly supporting Guerra's opponent Mauro Garza after a picture of her son Edward appeared on social media when both men inadvertently ran into each other at a local Whataburger restaurant.
In his post, "Hoss" accuses her – a true yellow-dog Democrat – of plotting against Guerra and posting a fake photo montage of her together with Republicans Eric Flores and Mauro Garza and of working against his boss and plotting against him and other Democrats.
To her credit, Garza-Perez did not fall for the bait and kept her own counsel. But by allowing his attack dog to maul her publicly and accusing her of not being a "real" Democrat, Guerra might have crossed the line with county Democrats who know the county clerk is about as loyal a Democrat as they come.
He didn't stop there. He also accused her of being a "snake in the grass" and undermining the Democrats "behind their backs."
He claims that the word on the street is that she is looking for an opponent to Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, that she thinks Cameron County Democratic chairman Jared Hockema is "incompetent," and that U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez is a "party boy."
She, of course, vehemently denies these spurious allegations. And since it has been proven that Guerra and "Hoss" are running in tandem, it can only be surmised that Guerra approved of these attacks in order for her to toe the party line and kiss the ring.
(Kind of reminds you of the Q-Anon conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton involved with a pedophile ring operating out of a pizzeria in San Francisco when in reality, it was a distraction to mask Epstein, Musk, and Trump's involvement – among other powerful men – who were operating a world-wide pedophile ring. Only in Cameron County, a Democrat using a page from the Republicans' bag of tricks.)
When three county commissioners in 1988 did the unthinkable and endorsed Republican county judge candidate Tony Garza, they said the qualities of their party's candidate (Ray Ramon) forced them to put aside their party loyalty and urged their constituents to vote for Garza, which they did and then - obviously satisfied with the future Ambassador to Mexico's performance - voted him in again four years later.
"Sometimes party loyalty demands too much," they wrote in "An Appeal to Reason" published in local newspapers like the Brownsville Herald and the Valley Morning Star.
They say that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, but the election of two Republican county judges in deep-blue Cameron County in the recent past belies that saying.
So, as we asked above: Is Guerra a DINO (Democrat In Name Only), a RINO (Republican In Name Only), or none (or both) of the above? Apparently neither, Steve is only for Steve.
Will voters reject the indiscriminate bloodletting by the Guerra camp on Democrats and see it strike a third time? And if they did, who could blame them?
