By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
BROWNSVILLE, Texas | You know, it wasn't all that long ago that this Democratic Party stronghold tolerated its small crowd of rabble-rouser Republicans perhaps a bit too, too kindly. That has changed dramatically. And much of it has come with vicious name-calling and verbal onslaughts that, well, suit the favored style of...Republicans.
Susan Ruvalcaba, shown in photo above, is the latest target of the ferocious, almost savage treatment the Democrats are doling out. She lost a recent Brownsville City Commission election and didn't take it well. The pro-Donald J. Trump candidate didn't quite let out her nice adios, quickly assailing the candidate who beat her - one Celestino "Tino" Villarreal, a football coach at a local private school.
"La Marrana," they called her, for one.
Not exactly a word used in any community setting for a woman who leaves the citizen bench and seeks political office. Marrana means "female pig" in Spanish, this town's common language. But it goes beyond the biological definition. The word was being aimed as an insulting nickname for a woman who is chubby, although the one calling her that never did go there.
It's understood, they will tell you, however.
The rest of the Rio Grande Valley knows that Brownsville does not wear any sort of criticism well. It seems to have the thinnest skin, if you can say that about an inanimate entity. Few in town will even argue the fact that Brownsville is the most under-achieving, under-performing city in the Valley. It should be more, cry the critics.
Pride, however, can be seen in any of the however-craggy, sun-baked faces here.
Democratic Pride, we should say.
Republicans up to now always had been the proverbial, dumb second-tier political candidates in town, most of them choosing not to shake the tree branches, all of them losing on Election Day and getting on with their lives. Citizen Carlos Cascos, a former Cameron County Judge and Texas Secretary of State, kept posturing himself for election and kept losing. If he bitched about it, only he knows. Cascos was well-behaved, graceful in defeat. Miss Ruvalcaba changed all that in one fell swoop.
She let it be known that she was a Trump Republican ahead of her city commission race. Everyone saw and heard her bellicose style. Everyone believed her. If smart Cameron County Republican Party Chairwoman Morgan Graham (shown in photo above, at left) questioned any part of her loud and proud campaign, we never heard it.
Once, when a local Republican candidate for the State Board of Education had told a campaign audience he wished to "exterminate" all Democrats, Graham came out and scolded him and said something to the effect that it was a poor choice of words.
Who knows how much longer Miss Ruvalcaba plans to stay in the limelight? It's obvious she wanted to win, maybe even more than any candidate ever dreams of winning an election.
When she next alleged that newly-elected City Commissioner Tino Villarreal had a drinking problem that had reared its ugly head while he chaperoned students during a trip to England, the gloves came out. her words saw quick drowning under a tsunami of counterattacks that eventually included threat of a defamation lawsuit. Mr. Villarreal is a public figure now, so the legal defamation bar is pretty high. Still, it's a "back-at-you" move of the sort Democrats here have never had to make against the previously-docile Republicans.
The suddenly waving GOP banner here is something new.
We wonder if all Republican candidates will now discard the usual mellow way of seeking public office. We don't see the previously mentioned Cascos doing it. That's never been his style. But angry, emboldened younger candidates, those not part of the tame, Old School dogma will bring hellish fire & brimstone. Susan Ruvalcaba should credit herself for that.
As they say (usually in evil), Pandora's Box has been opened.
Democrats here should regroup and find a better way to fight, rather than simply heading immediately for the cesspool or the outhouse. Out-Republicanning Republicans is probably fun, but not the answer. Keep fielding better candidates. That's the ticket.
The Democrats throwing rocks and stones would likely tell you that they are fighting fire with fire. That would be true.
But reality says it also would be useless - and likely energizing - against accomplished Firestarter Republicans...
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