MAGA FLORES STRATEGY: PROMISE DEMS THE WORLD, THEN GO BACK TO CALLING THEM TRAITORS, THE PRESIDENT "CRIMINAL"

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Suddenly, Republican District 34 candidate Maya Flores can't do enough for Democrats.

This same woman – who labeled Democrats "traitors' and President Biden a "criminal" – is now currying the Democrats' favor without whose crossover votes she cannot win. And toward that end she has started to use her taxpayer-paid franking privileges to endear herself to the same voters she derided in her appeals to get the Republican primary nomination.

And she knows well that if she courts the Democratic faithful in Cameron County – and Brownsville, in particular – she might make Democratic voters think that she really loves them now. 

Look at the issues that she has embraced as the election approaches. 

Decrying the jump in utility bills that ratepayers of the Brownsville Public Utility Board (BPUB) residents are enduring, she has called for an investigation into the municipally-owned utility to justify the higher rates.  

Has no one told her that the PUB guys have come before the Brownsville City Commission to explain that a confluence of higher natural gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the hangover of the freeze that crashed the statewide grid has forced utilities all across the state to cover the costs through higher rates while her hero, Gov. Greg Abbott, wrings his hands and assures Texans that all has been fixed. 

That, of course, is not true. The state's electric grid has approached crash, not because of the freeze, but because of the summer heat. There have been warnings of blackouts across the state. The policies of the Republican-controlled legislature has prevented real energy reform and it is well known that the statehouse GOP are in the pocket of oil-and-gas corporations who pad their campaign coffers to protect their interests. So is she.

Now she is passing herself off as a paladin of local military veterans, informing them that she has  demanded that the Veterans Affairs Department through its Memorial Affairs of the National Cemetery Administration requesting the VA permit the construction of a veterans cemetery in Brownsville.

She is asking for a waiver of the VA's 75 mile rule on the distance between VA cemeteries. Sounds good? Sounds good to us, too, but that has been tried before. Her motives are obviously purely political because she demands an answer for her waiver request by October 5, only 19 days before early voting starts on October 24. 

The process, if the VA relents and grants a waiver, will take much longer than that, perhaps even longer than the two-year term she seeks, if the worse happens and she wins. 

But, like the PUB investigation gambit, it is not meant to really provide a solution, but to entice gullible voters to blacken her oval on the November ballot. When nothing comes off these "issues," well, she can always say that at least she appeared to be trying. 

No one in her family has served in the military, unlike her opponent Gonzalez, whose father served in the Korean War and who has voted to support bringing health clinics for veterans, expand coverage for veterans exposed to toxic pits, voted to increase mental services to combat suicides among them, and added accountability and oversight of the VA during his tenure.

If Gonzalez's dad was a Democrat, does Flores consider him – a combat veteran – also a "traitor?"

Her newsletter sees her hugging elderly Hispanics and children telling them she is in Washington fighting for their health services, and now veterans.

Flores and her Republican handlers and strategists know that she needs Brownsville to beat Vicente Gonzalez this November and she is pulling out all the stops to make them believe she is the best thing since Frito Bean Dip.

Gone is her disdain for Democrats. They are no longer "traitors" and we don't remember when she last claimed that Trump won the 2020 election and that Biden – the candidate who the voters put in office with their legitimate votes – is a "criminal."

Democrats cannot sleep at the wheel and allow this chameleon charlatan and Hispanic Trojan Horse to beguile local Democratic voters. They must call her out on her claims that the election was stolen, that Biden is not the legally elected president, and that the January 6 insurrection mob was a group of patriots exercising their right to protest.

She needs Brownsville to win. But above all, she needs for Democrats in Brownsville to cross over and vote Republican. If the unfortunate event occurs, she will go back to her old ways. Beware of Republican Flores bearing gifts.