TARA GOES DOWN: LOZANO SCORES

By Juan Montoya
We were watching the election returns at the Palm Lounge last night when a friend of mine watching the screen behind me said,"Hey, Tara is going down!"
We knew he was talking of the Texas State Rep. 43 race between incumbent Tara Rios-Ybarra and first-time candidate J.M. Lozano.
Nonetheless, in a table full of media types, there's always a smart ass ready to pipe up with some smart remark. And sure enough, someone did.
"On who?" someone at the table quipped.
Many observers did not give the Kingsville restaurateur much of a chance against Rios-Ybarra. To start with, Lozano's turf was sparsely populated Kleberg County while his opponent lived in burgeoning South Texas, including South Padre Island. There, the population growth was going though the roof.
Yet, others wondered whether the conservative South Texas folk were willing to overlook the tawdry tales of two-timing adultery shadowing the comely dentist from Brownsville. Many pointed to the hefty campaign treasure that Rios-Ybarra had accumulated, including respectable sums from the tort reform zealots who believed that medical professionals could do no wrong and that the few cases that actually got through the judicial system to a jury were the result of personal injury vampires.
Our cries of surprise at the numbers being flashed on the screen (Lozano 6,743 to her 4,779) attracted the attention of our good friend Mary, a self-acknowledged fallen woman who feeds her crack habit panhandling barflies and the occasional john.
"What's up?" she barked and ambled over. "Football is over. What are you screaming about?"
We told her (after we bought her a beer) that Rios-Ybarra had been involved with a married man and that she had admitted to being with him even before he had been hit with s divorce suit by his former wife.
"I get those kind all the time," she said. "What's so unusual about that?"
We went on and explained to her that the guy was a millionaire and had jetted around the world with her while his wife had to pay for his children's schooling and other costs.
"Men are all jerks," she said. "Did she get some of his dough?"
Yeah, we told her. He even went as far as to raise money for her campaign from his friends.
We also explained that the wronged spouses had teamed up with her opponent to help him eject her from office. They had even appeared with Lozano at public functions to support him, we said.
"I'd shoot the bitch if she took my man," she said.
In the end, we told her, being rejected by the voters after a first term when she claimed she was the rookie legislator with the most bills passed amounted to a sort of death, albeit a public death.
"You play the game, you take your chances," she said over her shoulder as she pulled up her hip-hugger jeans and headed for Market Square looking for business.