Gil Cisneros-- Does this look like an "ex"-Republican to you?A trusted political operative told me today about an encounter he had with a scumbag multimillionaire "ex"-Republican who the DCCC is trying to impose on a district filled with progressive Democrats. The "ex"-Republican is running as a Democrat and pretending to take progressive-- or progressivish-- policy positions. He tried hiring my friend and told him that "once [the primary] is over I'll shake off all that blue shit and pivot." They're usually better at hiding their intentions until after the DCCC sneaks them into Congress. Tuesday we saw the DCCC admit that they are recruiting Blue Dogs and Wednesday we looked at how that endangers progressive agenda items like, for example, single payer, and how it's usually only Blue Dogs and New Dems who vote for corporate-sponsored, bribery-triggering GOP legislation like the bill this week to allow more air pollution-- 4 Democrats-- all Blue Dogs of course-- joined all but 11 Republicans to pass this deadly, toxic bill. You want more Blue Dogs in Congress? The DCCC leadership sure does!Let me say something about "ex"-Republicans. I love it when a Republican sees the light based on policy concerns and gives up the GOP and joins the Democratic Party. I know plenty of good people who have done that. But we have to be very careful about elevating them to positions of party leadership and power by quickly moving them ahead of real Democrats to favor them getting party nominations, especially for Congress. I've watched dozens and dozens of them through the years and with only one or two exceptions, they all gravitate to Republicans and vote with Republicans on crucial issues, just the way Charlie Crist ("ex"-Republican Blue Dog-FL) and Tom O'Halleran ("ex"-Republican Blue Dog-AZ) and doing today.How are they even Democrats? ProgressivePunch rates them each "F" and their crucial vote scores are, respectively, 41.94 and 28.12. On crucial issues they vote more with Ryan and McCarthy than with Pelosi. Why are they even considered Democrats? Is enough to just vote to further the career goals of Pelosi and Hoyer? Is that the standard for which someone can claim to be a Democrat? One of the places where the DCCC is recruiting "ex"-Republicans and trying to pass them off as Democrats is Orange County. Yesterday Orange County Register reporter Martin Wisckol exposed the whole charade. The headline seemed non-controversial enough: Republicans-turned-Democrats challenging O.C. GOP Congress members. "The parade of Orange County Democrats running for Congress," he wrote, "is expected to grow to 19 today, July 19, with two former Republicans joining the pack seeking to take out GOP incumbents. Brian Forde, a former technology adivsor in Barack Obama’s White House, planned to announce today that he will challenge Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Beach, bringing the field of Democrats in that race to six. Navy vet, lottery winner and philanthropist Gil Cisneros on Monday launched his challenge of Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, who now has four Democratic opponents." DWT first exposed Cisneros (the lottery winner the DCCC wants to sell the nomination to) as an "ex"-Republican. Forde has been making Republican-sounding noises so it was an easy guess before the OC Register spelled it out.Forde, who is 37, blames his parents for his adherence to the Republican Party. He told Wisckol he "had adopted his parents’ party affiliation as a Republican until re-registering as a Democrat"... wait for it last year, age 36, "a change he said was overdue because of changes in the GOP and his own political evolution." Like many Orange County Republicans, he voted for Hillary last year. He didn't mention if he had voted for Mimi Walters or not.Cisneros, who is the perfect mascot for Pelosi's DCCC, had a standard GOP line for why he switched, which doesn't mention anything about his own political ambitions.
A longtime Republican who re-registered as a Democrat in 2015 after three years as an independent, Cisneros said it’s not his views that have changed but those of the GOP.“What a Republican was in the ’80s is kind of what a Democrat is today,” he said, pointing to President Ronald Reagan’s support of amnesty for undocumented immigrants and of the gun control measure known as the Brady Bill.
He hasn't even been elected to anything yet and he's already responding to every tough question with a lie. So, in that way at least, he's still a Trump Republican-- not just hoping to buy the nomination, but claiming, falsely, that he had planned to move to CA-39 all along. He had no intention of moving out of his $10 million beachside mansion until he was called out for being a district-shopper and buckled to the pressure. Besides, a big lottery winner ($266 million) can afford numerous homes. These two are just the latest "ex"-Republicans to jump in in Orange County. But if you tap the Act Blue thermometer on the right you'll come to a list of candidates that incliudes no "ex"-Republicans, no Blue Dogs, no New Dems and no one from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- and we've already endorsed 2 Orange County candidates, Sam Jammal (CA-39), Ed Royce's progressive opponent, and Doug Applegate (CA-49), Darrell Issa's progressive opponent. We are in the middle of our long vetting process for the other districts, but CA-45 has two outstanding progressives so far, Katie Porter and Kia Hamadanchy, so it'll be hard to endorse just one candidate.UPDATE: Do "Ex"-Republicans Always Lie About Everything?Cisneros has been busy lying to the press. People are wondering who at the DCCC encourages this kind of behavior. Señor Trumpanzee, apparently, doesn't have an exclusive on bullshit.The L.A. Times article reported that Cisneros switched from the Republicans way back in 2008. But, unluckily for the lottery winner, the O.C. Register looked up his registration and notes he left the GOP in 2012 as an independent before becoming a Democrat in... 2015. He also is quoted as saying he supported Bernie in the primary-- pure bullshit from someone desperate the pretend to be a progressive. A quick look at the FEC reports show he maxed out to Hillary Clinton in March of 2016 and gave ZERO to Bernie. This guy is pathetic. The DCCC should be ashamed.