CAMERON COUNTY:...Lose The Hats & Mustaches, Boys...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Can we lose the hats and mustaches? That would be a big improvement in law enforcement around here. Put a badge on a local dude and he thinks he's Wyatt Earp. But it doesn't work. As with expensive suits & ties, the Mexican male just can't pull it off. They look awkwardly lost, as if dressed by some assimilation warrior.

The feller you see in photo above is Cameron County sheriff's candidate Jesus Rosas Jr. (shown in photo above and at his desk at work below).

He is likely an okay guy. His law enforcement experience is notable.

But that "look" blows it. Why not simply look "professional." You know clean-cut, shaved and no dumb cowboy hat. What is this, Night of The Vato Rodeo?

We're agonizing about which candidate we may support for this job. Incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza has his flaws and problems, but nothing scandalous. We're leaning in his direction. But he, too, has that Border Vaquero image in his head. Lose the dumb hat!

This is something wildly peculiar as a Rio Grande Valley offering to area voters. Candidates do seem to want to separate themselves on issues and manner of campaigning, but they dress like slobs. Weight (an excess of pounds) tends to get in the way, we know. That and a lack of or graying hair. Hats on men look stupid in 2023. Cowboy hats even more if you're not some actual ranch hand out in West Texas, where the hat is utilitarian and not just for looks.

So far, the only Cameron County candidate not going the Pancho Pistolas route is Ronnie Saenz, but we're early in the campaigning and he may yet get over to Walmart and plunk down $15/$20 for a cheap hat.

The mustache says what?

Gillette, the maker of razor blades, says a mustache is "a great way to show a little personality via your face." Eh. The thin mustaches look like pencil art and the thick ones like those ugly big, fat caterpillars. Over the upper lip, they look like misplaced armpit hair. Adult men of the mid-1800s did it better, and that era is where mustaches should remain. In the Valley, they are as common as fat bellies. That is not necessarily a good thing. Public officials should clean up their act, it says here.

Even Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra (see photo below) fell for that hat & 'stache look.

The word in the streets and cantinas here is that Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz set the mustache in vogue here almost a decade ago. He rarely wears a cowboy hat, but that wolverine-lookalike mustache he sports is straight out of GQ Magazine.

We're not going to harp too much about this, but we will say that we're normally more impressed with public officials and politicians who are not fashion moochers, who have the inner strength to simply be themselves.

Longshot sheriff's candidate Jesus Rosas Jr looks weird in his bald head and mustache, as would most bald men out for mustaches.

That may or may not explain the cowboy hat.

But if it does, that means he has issues with himself - and voters will nose that out pronto...

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