Caracas Chronicles

The ongoing microphone wars between Enrique Mendoza and Julio Borges, and between Yon Goicoechea and pretty much everyone else, are not pleasant sights. They are the natural consequence of the decision to determine candidates for Congress in a smoke-filled room.

How do I know that? Compare what’s going on with the race in Miranda’s Baruta-Chacao congressional district.

In Baruta-Chacao, we have a healthy roster of candidates, one that includes Carlos Vecchio, Maria Corina Machado, Alfredo Romero, Ricardo Sanchez and a few others. This district will hold a primary April 26th. The candidates are out campaigning, and their websites make little mention of the other guys, instead focusing on what they are bringing to the table.

What you don’t see in the Baruta-Chacao race is a whole lot of public bickering. Maria Corina isn’t taking to El Universal’s Op-Ed pages to trash Vecchio, and Vecchio isn’t holding a press conference to call Maria Corina a puntofijista.

Baruta-Chacao is everything the rest of Miranda isn’t: a hardly fought competition between candidates who are respectful of each other, who understand they will need to work together once all is said and done.

One is holding a primary. The others are being decided on by an opposition mega-cogollo. One is proceeding reasonably well. The other ones are a mess.

Case closed.