By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...No contest. Republican darling Mayra Flores will take the March 5th, Super Tuesday, primary without a sweat to then barrel into the November General Election against dull incumbent Democrat Vicente Gonzalez for the 34th Congressional District seat.
Bank it, plebes.
Any word going against that is pure folly. The 38-year-old Flores has been busy on the cable-TV circuit making her case and being taken seriously. None of her opponents even gets a nibble beyond the lowly, ever-crowing Brownsville blogs.
Are you ready?! Are you ready for the Flores vs. Gonzalez sequel, one we say will be a rough 15-round affair in a sun-baked ring right here in the magical Rio Grande Valley? Of course you are. You're a partisan looking for an advantage, for a quick lead and a convincing victory.
Gonzalez vs. Flores will be a close one, at this juncture too-close to call. Both of these candidates have the ready cash, Miss Flores said to have banked a cool $1 million for the campaign, while Gonzalez is counting on the national party to cover his advertising and travel bills.
The bureaucrat-minded Gonzalez has no opposition heading into the primary.
Miss Flores, born in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas along the excitable southern banks of the Rio Grande, drew three of the most lackluster, ill-equipped opponents to ever grace regional politics. They are, in no particular order of non-importance: Raymondville Nobody Mauro Garza, Brownsville medical-doctor-cum-politician Laura E. Cisneros and terribly inexperienced Gregory Kunkle of Harlingen.
Miss Flores in a massive Mt. Kilimanjaro landslide, it says here.
The country has seen two votes at this point - the Iowa caucus and the primary in New Hampshire.
On March 5th, a few more states will head for the polls. This year, fifteen states will vote on Super Tuesday: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. One territory, American Samoa, will also vote.
Lyin' Ted Cruz, the Republican junior U.S. senator from Texas, will also be on the ballot. His main rival in the General Election is former Tennessee Titans linebacker Colin Allred, a Democrat from up Dallas way. Cruz is favored to gain reelection.
It's the Flores vs. Gonzalez knock-down, drag-out that will titillate South Texas voters. Gonzalez, a mild-mannered, two-term congressman, is a rather genial dude not comfortable with raising Hell or his voice. Miss Flores brings Hellfire to her campaigns.
In the long, hot summer of 2022, she whipped uninspired, "I've Got Other Things To Do" Democrat Dan Sanchez to win former retiring Congressman Filemon Vela's seat in a special election. She lost to Gonzalez in the ensuing General Election that November by some 10,000 votes.
She bitched about voters not turning out after promising to ride a so-called Red Wave of Republican voter. The wave crested, but it arrived in Blue and favoring Vicente Gonzalez.
Still, all pundits know Mayra Flores is the roadside attraction in this race...Buckle-up...
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