El Cuco Doesn't Live Here: Unveiling the MCDCC's Boogeyman

How the MCDCC forgot what a republic is.

The boogeyman– in Puerto Rican culture, especially, El Cuco, is the nighttime ghoul who hides in children’s closets, underneath their beds, behind slightly ajar doors, residing in the suspiciously dark corners of dimly lit rooms, emerging until after nightfall, when the black midnight sky settles into the howls of Hades. The only way to avert the dreaded fate of being swallowed whole is to attend to mother’s direction– fall asleep, remain asleep, before El Cuco rises.

In politics, especially in the course of an election, it is far easier to call out for the boogeyman, to conjure up the spectre of El Cuco, than to answer difficult questions. El Cuco, forever the supernatural, eternally evil phenomena, was invented to frighten children into compliance, to keep them from ever turning on the light. Fear alone serves as the primary hook, effectively conquering those children unable to summon the courage to get out of bed, flip the switch, and look.

Recently, the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) voted to oppose my candidacy for the MCPS Board of Education, notably changing their own bylaws earlier this year to make it possible. Let’s pause to take in the gravity of this move– in response to the “threat” of an independent, unaffiliated candidate in a nonpartisan school board race, the MCDCC rewrote their own rules so it could keep the truth of MCPS’s waste, mismanagement, and outright failure to meet its fiduciary duty from ever being revealed. They summoned a phantasmic wraith, pointed at it, and are now asking Democratic voters — adults, parents, taxpayers — to be afraid of the rays of broad daylight.

Snapshot of the this year’s MCDCC Rules change in order to counter “extremist” candidates

MCDCC’s approach towards local politics is particularly troubling. MCDCC frames elections through the lens of the hovering, helicopter parent, choosing fear as a tool instead of engaging voters to practice discernment through the critical analysis of policy proposals. “Be afraid of Brenda Diaz, el Cuco!” they shout. Nevermind the mold, the crumbling buildings, the staggering achievement gap reflected in a 22% Algebra I pass rate, and the rubber-stamped budgets — all carefully documented in the press, including my Substack articles, yet consistently ignored. They’d prefer MoCo voters render the role of Oliver Twist, begging for crumbs from a Central-Office bloated MCPS. “Please sir, I want some more. It’s safe.” To honor our children’s future, honesty requires that we understand the bottom line of these tactics: manufactured fear engenders strict conformity despite tribulation’s requisite bravery.

I am a James Madison Memorial Fellow — an honor awarded to outstanding educators committed to teaching the constitutional principles upon which our nation was founded. That commitment is the intellectual and moral foundation of everything I believe about public education and the purpose of the Board of Education. A Board of Education should be the embodiment of a republican system, requiring all hands on deck, across every community, across every ideology, for our children to truly thrive.

Let’s directly address the fearmongering accusations outright: I am not a member of Moms for Liberty nor have I ever been endorsed by that organization — despite the MCDCC’s own public statement claiming otherwise. The Republican Party gifted me their endorsement after a thorough evaluation of my policies and platform. I did not seek it. Take a look for yourself at what I propose at DiazForBOE.com. I am an unaffiliated, independent candidate running in a nonpartisan race, beholden to no political party, no union, and no interest group. What I am is an MCPS parent, a 20+ year veteran educator who grew up in a gifted and talented program in the Bronx and dreamed of becoming a public school teacher. I am the one candidate in this race who taught in our schools and witnessed the decay within our buildings and leadership. I am also the only candidate who will meet with any member of this community — Latino Democratic clubs, community watchdog organizations, parent groups across the ideological spectrum — simply because the children of Montgomery County do not belong to any party. They belong to their families, who entrust them to our care the moment they enter our schools.

Beyond El Cuco, the MCDCC’s opposition statement is a masterclass in finagling fairytale imagery of the fishy and foreboding kind:

MCDCC dressed me in the Emperor’s New Clothes — labeling me “extremist” and “hate-group aligned,” selling the invisible virtues of a broken system to fatigued MoCo parents, daring anyone to say out loud that there is nothing there. The MCDCC are the courtiers, nodding along, pretending to see a magnificent gown, hoping the crowd follows their lead rather than trusting their own eyes.

MCDCC are the Boy Who Cried Wolf — exhausting the word “extremist” on every independent voice that challenges their power, until the word itself has lost all meaning. The real threats to academic excellence and our children’s safety already arrived, yet they cannot hear it. We do. The only question left is whether voters will make them listen.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Angelica Alzona

Finally, MCDCC are Chicken Little — running through the barnyard screaming, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” because one unaffiliated educator, beholden to no party and no union, dared to ask why only 22% of our children pass Algebra I, why our children aren’t reading whole books in our elementary schools, and why MCPS insists on grade inflation. Chicken Little was actually my favorite bedtime story growing up. He was hilarious to 6-year-old me. I never imagined I would one day become the acorn. Nor did I ever think I’d have to remind MCDCC that the state of MCPS is not a laughing matter.

It seems, by all accounts, that the MCDCC has cast itself as MoCo’s favorite storyteller. The question worth asking is — what is the MCDCC actually for?

Based on its own description, the Committee exists to build the Democratic Party — fundraising, recruiting candidates and volunteers, filling vacancies in partisan elected office, organizing precincts. The MCDCC’s website states plainly that it does not endorse candidates or produce a sample ballot during primary elections. That is, until it decided I was the exception.

Let’s remember, folks: I was not supposed to make it past the 2024 primary. I beat a sitting incumbent to do it, Rebecca Smondrowski, finishing with 20.64% of the vote to her 18.10%. I was not supposed to receive nearly 45% of the vote in the general election against the full weight of the MCEA Apple Ballot machine. I did.

Despite tens of thousands of dollars spent to defeat me in that election, I should have received significantly less support than I did. These numbers are terrifying to a political machine dead-set on determining who holds a legitimate voice to participate in local politics. As such, a committee whose function is to build a party apparatus instead appointed itself as the arbiter of who may sit on a Board of Education that answers to every child in this county, Democrat, Republican, and unaffiliated alike. This is full-on “Boss” Tweed Tammany Hall politics, as the MCDCC reaches past their self-defined mandate in an attempt to control a public institution it was never meant to govern. MCDCC’s by-law maneuvering shenanigans are, in fact, a startling admission — the kind that would frighten El Cuco himself — that the MCDCC is losing its grip on the MCPS narrative, and they know it.

“Ah, but the Montgomery County Republican Party included your name on its sample ballot– hypocrite!” The accusation belies the fundamental difference between a sample ballot and an anti-endorsement. A sample ballot is a passive list — informational, requested by no one, binding on no one. I did not seek it any more than I sought the MCDCC’s opposition. Furthermore, a list is not a weapon. The MCDCC did not simply decline to endorse me. They voted to build a mechanism, then deployed it against the single unaffiliated, independent candidate in a race where party affiliation is, by law, irrelevant. Ultimately, they seek to suppress accountability in MCPS and the Board of Education, dressing it up as principle, while misunderstanding the very constitutional principles they claim to defend.

Popular sovereignty — the principle that all legitimate governmental authority derives from the consent and will of the people, not from any party, union, or committee claiming to act on their behalf — is one pillar of a healthy political system. Republicanism gives that sovereignty structure, ensuring the voice of the people is heard through deliberation, representation, and the rule of law, while still protecting the rights of the individual from being trampled by whichever faction happens to hold the most power in a given moment. As Benjamin Franklin noted, it takes tremendous effort to sustain. Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was asked what kind of government the founders created. He answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Honoring our constitutional legacy requires a level of care beyond the constricted party machine scope of the MCDCC, one they blatantly ignore.

Let us also remember, on this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, that our first president, George Washington, “warn[ed us] in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” Pure democracy is vulnerable to what James Madison, in Federalist No. 10, called the tyranny of faction — the tendency of organized groups to use majority power to silence minority voices and suppress dissent. Madison wrote: “When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.”

Republican governance — with its checks, its protections for minority voices, its insistence on deliberation over mob rule — exists precisely to counter that tendency. Therefore, properly understood, silencing anyone’s voice is the antithesis of what a Board of Education must be. The MCDCC’s actions are anathema to the principles we as Americans are meant to defend. We are not to be ruled by the mob. We are to uplift voices from across the spectrum — Democrat, Republican, and unaffiliated alike — so that every community has a genuine seat at the table.

Federalist No.10, published under the pseudonym, Publius, now known to be Madison’s work.

So, what exactly is so threatening about Brenda Diaz, the boogeyman, el Cuco herself, according to the MCDCC? A platform built on rebuilding academic excellence, prioritizing real school safety, boosting teacher morale through a Teachers’ Bill of Rights that restores their authority over classroom discipline, demanding responsible budget allocation, and championing genuine parental involvement — all documented evidence-based best practices presented at diazforboe.com, not invented to win an argument.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. Going back is the quickest way on.” You and I both know MCPS is on the wrong road. The MCDCC, the MCEA Apple Ballot machine, Strong Maryland, and Marylanders for a Better Future have spent $38,617 across two election cycles to make sure no one turns the car around.

The attacks against me mount because I am the only candidate willing to bring true accountability to MCPS. I represent parents, neighborhoods, and the community watchdogs this Board has dismissed for years. I represent the republican governance our founders designed — one that protects minority voices, demands transparency, and refuses to let any faction substitute its own interests for the public good.

My friends, the light is already on. Montgomery County voters have seen through the boogeyman, the wolf, the falling sky, and the bylaws rewritten in the dark. What they have found instead is a parent, an educator, and a James Madison Fellow who refuses to be silenced. Republics are not kept by accident. They are kept by citizens who show up, ask hard questions, and refuse to be governed by fear. That is the work in front of us now. A republic, if you can keep it. Montgomery County — vote like you intend to keep it.

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Primary Election: June 23, 2026. Early voting: June 11–18, 7am–8pm daily. Learn more at diazforboe.com