From State of Pappy and Kinky, SpicyBrown Seeks U.S. Senate Seat

Green Party candidate Emily Sanchez has few resources in her bid for U.S. Senate.

She has no war chest to buy ads or television time. Her campaigning is limited because she holds a full-time job. She has no campaign staff to write speeches and set up rallies. She faces formidable and well-financed opposition.

What she does have is a nickname, SpicyBrown, that voters will see on the ballot. She hopes it will garner attention and spur voters to examine her political stances.

“A lot of questions I get on my page is why I have the name,” she said, referring to her Facebook page. “Afterward, I have people ask what my platform is about. It helps that way.”

Sanchez, a physical therapist’s assistant and a slam poet from Laredo, said she came up with the idea for the name at the grocery store. While trying to think of a name for her slam poet persona, she saw a mustard bottle with a certain description.

“I’m brown, I’m spicy,” she said. “People tell me my poetry was spicy.”

So SpicyBrown she became.

A tradition of pithy nicknames for Texas politicians goes back more than 100 years, said Chuck Bailey, an Austin lawyer who chronicled his collection of buttons, bumper stickers and other ephemera in the book Texas Political Memorabilia.

For example, John Ireland, the governor of Texas from 1883-87, went by Ox Cart John to signal his opposition to railroad interests.

The first half of the 20th century provided perhaps the best-known examples. There were James E. Ferguson and Miriam A. Ferguson, the husband and wife known as Pa and Ma, both of whom served as governor. There was W. Lee O’Daniel, whose nickname Pappy came from the catchphrase “pass the biscuits, Pappy” on his 1930s radio program.

More recently, the humorist, musician and author Richard Friedman used his stage name, Kinky, on the ballot in 2006 when he was an independent candidate for governor.

State law allows the use of a nickname on the ballot only if the candidate has been known by that name for at least three years, and the nickname cannot be a slogan. In 2006, the secretary of state rejected a proposal by an independent candidate for governor, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, to go by Grandma on the ballot, saying it was too close to the “One Tough Grandma” slogan that the former state comptroller had used in previous campaigns.

At first, Sanchez said she was hesitant to use her slam poet name in the campaign.

“I’m not SpicyBrown on a daily basis,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I was ready to share that aspect. At the same time, it’s refreshing to be SpicyBrown out in the open.”

She said her poetry “is not laid back” and “reflects social inequalities.”

She was inspired to enter politics by the Occupy movement, taking part in an offshoot group in Laredo. Her policy proposals include encouraging greater use of renewable energy, increasing the minimum wage and lowering interest rates on student loans.

Sanchez’s job continues to limit her time on the campaign trail.

“I’m just a regular person,” she said. “I grew up poor, so I know what it was like. I’m not rich now. I struggle from day to day.”

Sanchez knows that she faces long odds. The incumbent, Republican John Cornyn, has held the seat for 12 years and is on his party’s Senate leadership team. He is looking to move up in the next Congress. The Democratic challenger, David Alameel, has spent millions from his personal fortune to try to wrest the seat from Cornyn.

Sanchez was not even invited to a recent televised debate between the major-party candidates. That's too bad, she said, because she would have liked to recite some slam poetry.

“That would have been epic,” she said.