Dem Candidate and Musician Hoping to Flip Texas GOP Seat Toured with Convicted Child Sex Offender
Do Democrats not have access to background check infrastructure that, say, every other political party in a first-world nation has? Or are they simply so bowled over by the prospect of celebrity that they’ll just ignore numerous red flags?
This is an open question in the case of Bobby Pulido. You may not have heard of him, but in the world of Tejano music — a genre of Spanish-language pop music generally performed by American-residing artists (Tejano means Texan en español) — the man is a star.
In Tejas, where the Democrats hope to flip a few seats in the midterms, Pulido seemed to be a great choice to nominate in order to turn the 15th Congressional District from rojo to azul. The hope is that he’ll unseat GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who has held the seat since 2023 and won by substantial margins the last two elections. The district has been redrawn, however, giving the Democrats more of a chance, especially with a pop star as the nominee.
Except for the fact that Pulido is a serial creep — and as part of his public profile, no less, which you think they’d have turned up.
In the latest scandal to hit the Pulido camp, it turns out that Pulido had performed numerous times with Frankie Caballero, another Tejano artist who served four years in prison for indecent contact with an 8-year-old girl.
While Pulido’s contacts with Caballero began in the 1990s, before the accordionist’s 2014 conviction on the sex crimes charges, Pulido continued to perform with him long after the conviction, the New York Post reported.
“Caballero appeared with the Tejano singer at concerts in Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Tucson, Arizona and in other states between 2018 and 2021, according to YouTube videos and social media reviewed by The Post,” the outlet reported Thursday.
“He also still lists his employment as ‘accordion player for Bobby pulido’ on Facebook and posted more than a dozen times over the same time period about shows with the singer in other Texas cities.”
Pulido’s team is pleading ignorance.
“Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history. Bobby extends his deepest sympathies and support to all of the victims involved,” Pulido’s campaign manager, Abel Prado, said.
However, Caballero has his public sex offender registration status listed online by the Texas Department of Public Safety, making it relatively easy to search out. In addition, the New York Post interviewed a Tejano bass player who said that Caballero’s conviction was “a known fact in music circles.”
“This really raises some concerns about Bobby’s judgment. You get to a certain point in music where they vet everybody around you,” Ramon Rodriguez said.
A former Hidalgo County, Texas, prosecutor also told the New York Post that there existed “simply no version of this story where Bobby Pulido did not know the man he employed and befriended for decades is a career child predator” because he would have had a “probation officer” and “employer verifications.”
Furthermore, by the first time Caballero and Pulido worked together — on the title song for his 1995 debut album — Caballero already had a lengthy record of convictions and had at least been booked in 1992 for an aggravated sexual assault charge. (How that case was disposed of was unclear, the New York Post said.)
And, in 2020, Pulido seemed to acknowledge the man’s history, telling a crowd in Arizona about how the two first met: “That guy’s a bad man! And so, I brought him over,” he said.
Also in 2024, Pulido said in an interview that it was a “shame” Caballero “just can’t stay out of trouble.”
Prado said that this was referencing Caballero’s issues with addiction and violence, not sexually abusing an 8-year-old.
“Frankie Caballero has long struggled with addiction issues and Bobby Pulido has acknowledged and attempted to help him with that battle,” Prado said. “When Jimmy Montez management learned of Caballero’s criminal history in 2021 he was immediately fired and that relationship was severed.”
This would be bad enough if there weren’t already quite the trail of gross Pulido-related stuff.
Even before the March primary where Pulido was nominated, a series of social media posts the Tejano artist made linking to or referencing pornography became the first red flag.
These posts, made between 2013 and 2024, included links to at least one site that has drawn numerous complaints for hosting child sex videos.
In one 2013 post, he talked about a friend who “tells me he’s bored and doesn’t know what to do. They say out there that there’s a website called youporn and that it’s cool. They say…”
I dunno, maybe he could have tried backgammon.
Then, in 2014, he wrote that “it’s impossible to have Twitter and not watch porn.” I’ve somehow managed to avoid it, but your mileage will vary — especially if the algorithm is feeding you what it knows you like by your history, cough cough.
Then there was the controversy over the video to his song “Dias de Ayer,” in which he cosplays as a series of pervert caricatures, including a man who pleasures himself in public — which, in case you’re not familiar with “Law & Order: SVU,” is also a sex crime.
The video, it’s worth noting, has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song, which are mostly about nostalgia (the title translates to “Days of Yesterday”), but were apparently put out there to address rumors regarding Pulido’s sexuality. Clearly, that worked wonders as a long-term solution.
While all of these are creepy, none of them constitute criminal behavior, just acting it out or acting like a lawful perv. Caballero wasn’t just an unlawful pervert, he was a man who served four years for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old, and Pulido still buddied around with him. “That guy’s a bad man!” he would tell audiences. Well, yeah.
So, again: The Democrats don’t have any sort of vetting apparatus, or they don’t care because they don’t think their voters will care. I’m betting on the latter, but the sad part is that I’m not even sure which is worse.
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