I hate Darrell Issa. I mean I absolutely hate him. He is the wealthiest member of Congress but does nothing for poverty. He is responsible for bringing us Benghazi as chairperson of Government Oversight committee. He really is a despicable human being.
I just saw Issa on CNN and I was reminded about how much I hated him, but this diary is not about him. It is about his opponent Doug Applegate: a 30 year Marine Corps veteran who joined the Corps after law school. He became a combat officer in Vietnam and later joined the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) office. He also served in Iraq. After he left the Marines, he started his own successful law practice and now he is running for California's 49th Congressional District.
This district runs along the coast in southern Orange and northern San Diego counties, with a tiny bit of Riverside county. The 49th Congressional District is the home of Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the world. For the past, 16 years this distinct has been represented by Douchebag Issa.
And so when, I saw him on CNN being his dishonest, hypocritical self, I decided I wanted to contribute to his opponent Doug Applegate. When I went to Doug's website, I thought it would be good to take a look at the guy I was going to contribute to - and I found that he was not just the standard no-name, blue-dog candidate I expected. Just look at his values:
DOUG APPLEGATE'S CORE VALUES
- Save the economy and the middle class without deficit spending, with gender pay and healthcare equality.
- End Wall Street’s bribery of Congress; Congress needs to stop Wall Street and casino bankers who gamble with Federal insured deposits making taxpayers cover their losses.
- Make America’s economy secure and great with wise investments to build the world’s best transportation, communications and a fully integrated renewable energy program across the nation.
- Stop less 25% of Congress from blocking effective legislation like the 2013 bipartisan immigration bill, by ending the Hastert rule particularly since Hastert pled guilty to Federal hush-money charges linked to allegations of sexual misconduct with his minor students.
- Americans have the right to sustainable farming and the right to know what's in the water and GMO food we eat, and what it might do to us.
- The U.S. mandatory sentencing & incarceration rate are immoral, racist and socially destructive.
- Honor the contracts with Working Americans who earned their retirement; earned decent health care; and earned a decent education for their children without crushing debt or the threat of privatization that the next Wall Street crash will wipe out.
This race will be a long haul. Darrell Issa has never received less than 58% of the vote. While the primary results where Applegate got 50,000 votes and 45% of the vote to Issa's 51% are encouraging, we will need to fight to defeat Issa this time.
You definitely should give money to Zephyr Teachout along with dozens of other worthy candidates, but please give to Douglas Applegate for Congress as well.
I will leave you with how the San Diego Union Tribune descrbes this race:
Despite his high profile, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, got only 51 percent of the vote against little-known Democrat Doug Applegate, and took less than half the vote in the San Diego County portion of the 49th Congressional District. Issa won 60 percent of the vote in November 2014. Assuming he’s re-elected, Issa had better watch out — he’s sure to face a better-known, better-funded foe in 2018.
Let's make Issa "watch out" this year, by supporting Douglas Applegate for Congress.