Mellow Congressman Vicente Gonzalez: Vulnerable As All Hell...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | What's he done, is the question I'm hearing more and more about lower-tier U.S. Congressman Vicente Gonzalez. Restlessness is on a slow fall over the 55-year-old's political career. And, boys, he's up for reelection next year. Again, after a harsh 2022 campaign against blowhard Mexican Republican Mayra Flores.

Flores is 37 and hungering for power, goes the line in restaurant political chat.

Gonzalez is not exactly Ted Cruz. He's not a publicity-hungry rat, as are some of Washington, D.C.'s better known politicians. He'd better flag down a handful of Big Time reporters and get with the program. Democrat Gonzalez, shown in photo above, is following in the soft footsteps of Old School politicians such as area milquetoast do'er & shaker Kika De La Garza, doing stuff but not generating publicity he needs to plant a seed in the minds of fickle district voters.

Miss Flores, shown in photo below alongside one of Gonzalez, got a taste of stardom when she beat stand-in Democrat Dan Sanchez in a race last summer and served as congresswoman for about six months ahead of her battle with Gonzalez late in November, which she lost but not by much. Gonzalez was no runaway vote-getter.

Will he up his game? Is the mellow, chubby Gonzalez capable of staging a down & dirty campaign to win yet again? He's no mercurial (some say, volatile) Marjorie Taylor Greene in the publicity game. How many front pages of national newspapers has he made?

His office in Washington, D.C. did release this info last Wednesday: [ Today, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded $8.9 million in funding to two Rio Grande Valley airports for general improvements via the agency’s Airport Improvement Program. "As our region continues to grow, it is crucial that our airports’ infrastructure is able to meet the demands of increased travel over the next few decades," said Congressman Gonzalez. "These critical improvements will ensure the health and safety of passengers, pilots, crews, and airport technicians at Valley International and McAllen International Airports." ]

Great, but hardly a newsmaker "World exclusive". Did you read about it in your local newspaper?

Gonzalez has had trouble becoming a household name in his native South Texas?

I'm afraid he's not that.

National politics is a whole other game, one these days requiring big money and oversized egos. Gonzalez seems to lack both. He's a genial man, out to serve his constituents. Unlike his predecessor Fil Vela, Gonzalez has not taken on Republican Donald J. Trump. Where Vela loudly told Trump to stick his Border Wall up his ass, Gonzalez has said...nothing. Not a word about the controversial Wall from Gonzalez.

Not a word about Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's continued damning of the Mexican border, a place where so many Hispanic Texans reside. Nada from Gonzalez on raging Abbott, something he could easily and rightfully address.

But, nooooooooooooooooo-oh.

Gonzalez is apparently not interested in brawling and clawing.

The thing is...that's the political game.

And Brown Republican Mayra Flores has shown she can play it...

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 [Editor's Note:...Noted free-lance journalist Guillermo X. Garcia contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. Additional info came from Sun reporter/photographer Ron Schade, interim chief of the Brownsville Bureau...]