Hi guys, I know you know I'm getting an abundance of campaign contributions and able to do fundraising for candidates but I now have two challengers to deal with. This isn't acceptable. I know my district has 29% Democrats and 24% Independents but people know me and they like my Benghazi and IRS investigations. Even the donations to my campaign agree.
Something's brewing in California's 49th Congressional District, the district which the infamous Darrell Issa represents. While CA-49 has had a long history with the Republican Party (President Richard Nixon bought property in San Clemente) and Issa has been Congressman since 2001 with a stature of being probably the most powerful Republican in California, the Cook Political Report mentions the district has a PVI of just R+4 and according to CA Voter Registration Statistics, Issa's district represents 29% Democrats and 24% Independents, in addition to 41% Republicans.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/...
Orange County:
Democrats: 22,239
Republicans: 44,833
Decline-to-State/Independent: 19,077
San Diego County:
Democrats: 84,282
Republicans: 107,221
Decline-to-State/Independent: 70,938
Total:
Democrats: 106,521
Republicans: 152,054
Decline-to-State/Independent: 90,015
In addition, 2012 Democratic Challenger Jerry Tetalman received 41.8% of the votes (rounded off to 42%) with zero outside help from the CA-49 district except some individual donations from people across the country. Given CA Voter Registration Statistics as of February 2013 don't show much has changed in the registration numbers aside from an increase of Democratic and Independent voters, arguably Tetalman's total votes didn't come from just Democrats across the board: Part of the 41.8% likely came from at least 10% of Independents registered in the district. The following is voter registration data from September 2012:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/...
Orange County:
Democrats: 24,488
Republicans: 49,273
Decline-to-State/Independent: 21,758
San Diego County:
Democrats: 77,215
Republicans: 102,557
Decline-to-State/Independent: 64,272
Total:
Democrats: 101,703
Republicans: 151,830
Decline-to-State/Independent: 86,030
Months ago, Democratic Candidate Dave Peiser jumped in the race and started campaigning and building his campaign.
Now it looks like another Democratic Candidate is jumping in to take a shot at unseating Darrell Issa. His name is Drew Leavens, a marriage and family therapist who as of the recent past few weeks has been working to get his campaign set up and underway.
Today, Drew Leavens and his campaign are hosting an event in San Diego at 8 pm at the Trinity United Methodist Church where you get to meet Leavens himself and ask questions. Details of the event are as follows:
http://dl49th.wpengine.com/...
Come out to the San Diego Contra Dance and meet Drew Leavens Candidate for California’s 49th Congressional District. Join Drew for music and dancing and get to know him a little better. Help support Drew Leavens for Congress!
Free introductory dance lesson at 7:30pm
Contra Dancing from 8–11pm.
Admission is $10 for dance (includes refreshments).
Discounts for teens and children.
Half price for students and military (full time college IDs/active military IDs).
Half price for anyone arriving after 9:30.
Trinity United Methodist Church
3030 Thorn Street, San Diego, CA 92104
8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
January 31, 2014
Here's a bit of bio from Drew Leavens' website to give you a sense of his background:
http://dl49th.wpengine.com/...
After college, Drew moved back to San Diego to take a job with what was originally the Department of Substance Abuse, later taken over by San Diego County Mental Health. He began working as a crisis counselor (1975). Two years later, he was made the manager of what became known as The Crisis Team. He supervised a staff of 22 counselors in the 24-hour a day operation, that had over 30,000 contacts each year. In the late 70’s, he received his marriage, family and child counseling license (MFCC) and soon after started a small private counseling practice. His first published article, “Suicide Intervention for First Responders” appeared in the book, Conflict Intervention in Social and Domestic Violence, edited by Carmen Warner (1981). While still manager of The Crisis Team, he was approached by Caltrans to assist in reducing the number of suicides off the Coronado Bridge. The collaboration resulted in signs posted along the bridge to let depressed individuals know that there were others who cared about them, along with a phone at the base of the bridge to reach The Crisis Team. The signs are still there today.
After working with the county for ten years, Drew left to form his own company, first called Drew Leavens and Associates, and soon renamed Specialized Training Services (STS), (1985). The company initially provided training to the county probation and sheriff’s offices throughout California but soon expanded to larger target audiences throughout the United States, Canada and Western Europe. Over time, STS developed a reputation of providing the highest quality training programs on very difficult topics such as sexual offender assessment, campus violence prevention, domestic violence, homicide, threat assessment in the workplace, terrorism, stalking, risk assessment of the mentally Ill and child custody evaluations. In 1992, Drew and STS were recognized for its outstanding seminars by receiving the “Excellence in Training” award from the International Association of Correctional Training Personnel.
For more than 28 years STS has provided over 1200 seminars and conferences to over 70,000 individuals. At the turn of the decade, STS began to publish books for professionals on important topics such as “Violence Risk and Threat Assessment”, “School Violence Threat Management” and “Workplace Assessment of Violence Risk” (WAVR-21) and “Children who Witness Homicide and other Violent Crime.” In addition to publishing six books, Drew was the editor of four of them. In 2011, STS coordinated a contract with the University of California, Office of the President, to provide workplace and campus safety and threat assessment training to each of the ten UC campuses. In 2013, STS worked with the United States Capital Police to provide training for their staff in Washington, DC on advanced threat assessment and threat management. The work of Specialized Training Services continues today (specializedtraining.com).
If you desire to support and get involved in Drew Leavens' campaign for Congress, links are below:
Drew Leavens for Congress:
http://dl49th.com/
Leavens on the Issues: http://dl49th.wpengine.com/...
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Contact: http://dl49th.wpengine.com/...