Vitão do Cachorrão: Rookie at Alesp gained fame with hotdog – 03/17/2023 – Politics

An office almost opposite that of Vitão do Cachorrão, in the Municipality of Sorocaba, boasts a panel with the flag of the Brazilian monarchy and photos of Jair Bolsonaro, Olavo de Carvalho, Enéas, Margareth Thatcher and Churchill.

Vitão, who left the position of councilor in the municipality of São Paulo to debut as a state deputy, says that he does not want to know about political references or ideological disputes, and the panel of his office was quite different: it brought a selfie of him with a favela in the background and the words “Son of a bricklayer and a hot dog vendor – Councilor of the People”.

He hammers in his communication the origin in a poor family. On the cabinet door, he hung a trowel, which he will take to the Legislative Assembly.

“It’s so I don’t forget where I came from, to remember that a tie, a suit and power can’t go to my head”, says Vitor Alexandre Rodrigues, 46, who in his childhood “earned a little money” cutting grass to feed a neighbor’s horse and in his teens he worked as a mason’s servant with his father.

At the age of 18, he had the idea of ​​setting up a hot dog cart in the garage of the family home, in Jardim Zulmira, on the outskirts of Sorocaba. As he worked on the cart and on construction sites, he ended up dropping out of school. He was in the 2nd year of high school at Humberto de Campos state school – later, when councilor, he took a supplementary course to complete basic education and now he intends to go to college.

The hot dog was a hit. “In São Paulo, they say hot dog, right? But here in Sorocaba it’s hot dog. People say: ‘Let’s eat a big dog?’, then I became Vitão do Cachorrão”, he says.

“When I got into politics, marketers told me not to put ‘Do Cachorrão’ on it. ‘I’ll put it on’, I replied. Everyone knows me that way.”

The hot dog stayed in the same place for 27 years, until it moved to a diner he built in the neighborhood a year ago. The establishment, where he continues to work on the ticket two or three times a week, functions as a kind of parallel political office, where he maintains contact with his voters/clients – now as a deputy, he intends to work at the snack bar once a week.

Their social media mixes political posts with advertising for the snack bar, which, in addition to hot dogs, serves other snacks. “If you want to eat a barbecue or a calabresão, a X-bacon, look at that whim, look at the onion chopped with a lot of love, which is good in the dog too. We deliver at home”, he says in a video.

The fact that he remains a hat maker and continues to live in the same house since he got married 26 years ago is something that Vitão turned into a political asset, reinforcing an image of simplicity.

“I know you’re recording [a entrevista], but I’ll say it: If we get sick in bed, we need someone to wipe our ass,” he says. “God forgive me for saying that, but it’s true. So we have to respect everyone. Today I’m a deputy, but I’m not better than anyone.”

Vitão talks a lot about God on social media and in his speeches in the Chamber. He is evangelical, faithful to the Christian Congregation of Brazil, but he also circulates in other churches attended by his electorate, such as the Assembly of God and Universal, all of them supporters of Bolsonaro in 2022.

Despite this and being affiliated with Republicans, the party of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas and which supported Bolsonaro in the elections, Vitão remained neutral in relation to the presidential campaign. He knew, of course, that a large part of his electorate, from the outskirts of the city, had a preference for Lula.

Despite confirming the Sheet who voted for Bolsonaro, made no mention of the former president in his campaign materials. “I’m not fighting over party, ideology, blue or red. I have many voters who voted for president A or B.”

Tarcísio, who, despite having supported Bolsonaro, held a position in the Dilma Rousseff government, appeared in Vitão’s saints. “Tarcísio was a great minister and he already had cancer, and I fight for people to have an early diagnosis and treatment.”

One of Vitão’s campaign promises was that he will apply for funds for the construction of a cancer hospital in Sorocaba. His office and the office he maintains in his neighborhood receive people looking for help to get appointments, exams and vacancies in public hospitals.

“I do everything legally. I never said ‘Give this one ahead’. Our legal team requests an injunction for urgent cases”, he says.

Vitão avoids guidelines of evangelical/Bolsonarist conservatism, such as opposition to the LGBTQIA+ movement. “The greatest example that Jesus left is love. I have two nephews and many gay friends. Once a gay soccer team needed a bus to go to a championship in São Paulo, and I helped to get it. They play well, see? “

He doesn’t care about criticism that his performance in the Chamber is welfare and that he escapes the role of a politician. “How am I not going to assist the most needy people, someone in pain, with cancer? You can call me an assistant, whatever you want.”

It also gives space on its social networks for the search for missing pets, such as the little dog Princesa, the dog Simba and the cockatiel Fio. At home, he, his wife and two daughters share the space with three dogs and 14 cats, most of which were rescued from the streets.

Vitão says he entered politics because the cachorrão’s customers asked him to. “On campaigns, candidates would go where I live on the campaign trail and then disappear.”

In 2008, he went to Câmara, where a friend worked. “I told him: ‘Find me a party, and I’ll become a candidate”. “Only the PSDC [Partido Social Democrata Cristão] opened doors for me.”

In the first election, he did not get a seat, nor in the second, in 2012, for the PRB (current Republicans). In 2016, for the PMDB (today MDB), he was elected councilor. In 2020, in the Republicans, he was re-elected, with 7,754 votes, the highest vote in the Sorocaba Chamber.

For deputy, he had 56,729 voters. In the Assembly, he states that he will support “projects that help people, no matter if from the right or the left”.

It intends to return to housing and health issues. “I want to do work on the outskirts, take a mammography cart from the state to women who need the exam”, she says. “I have a friend in São Paulo, Rafael Ilha, who left his addiction and will be with me, helping families that need treatment for this problem”, he says, about his recent friendship with the former member of the musical group Polegar.

“I met Vitão in his second term, through a mutual friend, the mayor of Sorocaba, Rodrigo Manga”, says Rafael to Sheet. “He is very funny, charismatic, has simplicity and a very cool life story.”

But Vitão didn’t keep a promise, admits Rafael. “He promised me a dog, which I haven’t seen until today. I had to go to his cafeteria to get my dogão”, he says, laughing, confirming the thesis of the new deputy that, in the capital, he would be the Vitão do Dogão.

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X-ray | Vitão do Cachorrao, 46

Vitor Alexandre Rodrigues is affiliated with the Republicans and became known as Vitão do Cachorrão thanks to the hot dog cart he set up, at the age of 18, in the garage of the family home and where he stayed for 27 years until he migrated to a snack bar, also in Sorocaba ( SP). In 2016, he was elected councilor in the city by the PMDB and was re-elected, in 2020, by the Republicans. He was elected state representative in 2022 with 56,729 voters.