CA-49: Darrell Issa Must Be Bleeding Out of His Whatever This Morning

By
Greg Diamond
– October 31, 2016Posted in: Fresh Juice

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Darrell Issa has made a terrible mistake.

Darrell Issa has made a terrible mistake: getting too clever in a year where people want real.

Darrell Issa’s mailer attempting to wrap himself in the warm embrace of President Barack Hussein Obama is starting to look like the worst political miscalculation in Orange County Congressional politics since … well, since Loretta Sanchez decided to give up her safe seat.  And his opponent, Marine Colonel Doug Applegate, is capitalizing on it, appearing with the almost giddy looking President in a new fundraising campaign.

I have to say, though, I don’t think that money (at least the amount that OJ Blog readers could scare up) is what Applegate really needs right now, at least here.  He needs hands and feet, butts in seats, voices on the phones, and a strong GOTV effort on Election Day.  He needs volunteers!

Applegate is not going to compete with the richest person in the House of Representatives when it comes to money; his consolation in that regard has to be that, while you can try to gold-plate a turd, it’s still not going to be something you’d want to hold in your hand.  Watching Issa try to appeal to everyday voters is like watching a starving dog begging for kibble: way beyond unsettling.

That means that the page that South Orange Countians — who were last on the nation’s political map when Richard Nixon lived there — really need to visit is this one.  Volunteer to GOTV with the campaign.

If the DPOC has any sense — no comment there — it will go beyond its efforts to register voters in San Juan Capistrano to putting together a Coordinated Campaign that can allow its aspirants for office from San Clemente up all the way to Dana Point to catch the favorable political winds by hanging onto Applegate’s coattails.  Chances like this don’t come along every decade!

Win or lose, this is a glorious story to see unfolding.  This is the sort of situation where you really find out how many friends you have.  And that is very bad news for Darrell Issa, who has never been out to make friends.

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)