"Where's Orlando?" update

Professors R-Squared remind me that it's time to check up on our County Treasurer, Orlando Sanchez, and his campaign promise to actually do something with that generally useless office he ran for. I did this last on March 21, at which time I discovered, to my complete non-surprise, that there hadn't been a single mention of him in the Chron that wasn't related to efforts to abolish the Treasurer's office. What have we had since then? A search of the Chron archives reveals exactly one story, and well, it's not exactly about how he was going to use the Treasurer's office as a platform to advocate for something.

ALICE Rekeweg, a Kingwood resident, is a member of the Patriot Guard Riders.

Patriot Guard Riders was established in 2005 and is a group of riders from across the nation.

It's mission is to attend funeral services of fallen soldiers, provide welcome home rides, or send-off escorts but only if the soldier's family invites them.

"I cry every time I ride," said Rekeweg, a mother of two sons, one stepson and a grandmother of one.

"Even if I'm just going down the street from the church to the cemetery."

Rekeweg also is Senate District 4 Chairman for the Harris County Republican Party and president of the Kingwood area Republican Women.

Rekeweg has been on six missions with the group, riding behind Orlando Sanchez, Harris County treasurer.

"Alice asked if she could ride with me," Sanchez, owner of a 2002 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle, said.

"Everybody has a different reason for wanting to ride.

"I came from a communist country, (Cuba) so I value my freedom.

"Whether you agree or disagree with this war, these kids signed up to protect us."

Sanchez and Rekeweg's most recent mission was March 11.

Nice story, but not exactly demonstrative of the awesome power of the Treasurer-cy. There was nothing else since March 21.

Now you may say, as Kevin did in the comments to my previous post, that just because the Chron hasn't covered whatever it is Orlando Sanchez has been doing, that doesn't mean he hasn't been doing anything. And hey, that's true. I mean, we live in a post-MSM, new-media, citizen-journalism blog utopia, right? Orlando could be generating all kinds of news, and those heartless bastards at the Chron could be simply ignoring him.

Well okay then. Here's the County Treasurer page, and here's Orlando's campaign web page. Note the complete lack of "news" or "press" links. Whatever it is Orlando is doing, it's nothing he feels the need to publicize. Here's a Google blog search - if you see anything news-like there, let me know. I kinda liked this post - it's not about Orlando, but it does have this excellent line, which is why it got picked up in my Google search:

How about a "Straight Talk Express"-like county bus tour with Orlando Sanchez? He lost two mayoral races and a county race. He's only in office because someone died.

Schweet.

Six months down, six more to go. Will we ever find out what it is that Orlando Sanchez does during the day? Stay tuned!

UPDATE: David Benzion has an amusing take on this.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 19, 2007 to Local politics