Friday, life-long opportunist Darrell Issa was on Bill Maher's show, Real Time, and declared himself one of the first House Republicans willing to stab Señor Trumpanzee in the back over Putin-Gate. "You cannot have somebody, a friend of mine Jeff Sessions, who was on the campaign and who is an appointee," he told Maher in regard to the question about investigating the Trump campaign. "You're going to need to use the special prosecutor's statute and office to take-- not just to recuse. You can't just give it to your deputy. That's another political appointee."High school drop out, car thief, arsonist-for-hire and general all-around hustler Darrell Issa got started in politics as an out-of-the-closet racist and then as a self-financed candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1998, losing the GOP nomination to a more mainstream Republican after spending $9.8 million of his own cash. Two years later, though, he managed to buy himself the GOP nomination for a San diego area congressional seat when Ron Packard retired. The Democrat in the race, Peter Kouvelis, gave up in the middle of the campaign complaining about the DCCC refusing to honor promises to help. Issa spent $2,304,833 to Kouvelis' $17,069. It was the beginning of a pattern. In 2002 the Democrats didn't put a candidate up against Issa at all. Two years later the DCCC refused it help Mike Byron, who raised $48,228 against Issa's $871,009 and wound up with 35% of the vote. In 2006, a huge Democratic year, it was Jeeni Criscenzo's turn to be screwed over by the DCCC and in 2008, another huge Democratic year (in which Obama beat McCain in CA-49) Robert Hamilton ran against Issa and was also hung out to dry by the DCCC. In 2010 Howard Katz got the same treatment. In 2012-- with Obama at the top of the ticket-- Jerry Tetalman expected help from the DCCC in his battle against Issa. He raised $131,168 against Issa's $2,478,710 and took 41% of the vote, the highest percentage against Issa ever. But the DCCC once again ignored the district and told the media it was unwinnable. They ignored Dave Peiser in 2014. And in 2016 the DCCC was completely prepared to do the only thing they know how to do in CA-49 (and most of the rest of the country): roll over and play dead.But something caught the DCCC unprepared-- a progressive retired marine colonel with a Bernie campaign staffer managing his race, Doug Applegate. Ignoring the DCCC entirely, grassroots progressive groups jumped into the race to help Applegate. He was able to spend $1,675,750 in the campaign (forcing Issa to spend a gargantuan $6,275,754). Confused and disoriented as usual, very late in the game the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC sensed Applegate could win and jumped in, ineffectively spending $3,231,961 on TV ads and other commissionable wastes of money. The see-saw Issa/Applegate contest was the last one to be decided in the whole country. In the end Issa won by 2,348 votes, 50.4% to 49.6%. The San Diego Union Tribune explained that "Issa, whose brush with political death came after cruising to re-election in years prior, likewise changed strategies to give more careful attention to his district. He ran a more typical campaign, complete with yard signs, town hall-style events, and a tour bus. He proposed legislation in direct response to complaints..." But Issa was a huge and early Trump supporter and the suburban San Diego/Orange County district wasn't buying Trump's fascist appeal. The district, which had given Romney a 52.4% win, handed Trump a miserable 43.2% loss.Blue America endorsed Applegate in the summer of 2016 and a few days after Issa managed to worm his way back into office we were one of the groups who urged Applegate to run again, explaining how rare it was for someone to win a congressional seat on the first try and that 2018 would be a good year for Democrats because of Trump's and Ryan's expected agenda overreach. He was the first 2018 candidate to declare and the first candidate Bblue America endorsed for 2018. (You can contribute to his campaign by tapping the ActBlue thermometer on the right.)75% of CA-49 is in San Diego County and Applegate won in those precincts with 53.1% of the vote. It was the very wealthy Orange County suburbs, though, where Issa managed to eke out his victory, winning 60.5% of the vote in areas like La Costa, Vista, Oceanside, San Clemente and Carlsbad. As of Oct. 24, the last day to register to vote, 31.2% of CA-49 voters were Democrats, while 37.8% were Republicans and 25.8% were decline to state voters.OK, so that's the background. What is the DCCC doing now, early in the game, to defeat Issa in 2018? The more progressive folks in DCCC-world are gung-ho on helping Applegate finish the job he started last year. But "the more progressive folks in DCCC-world" are a distinct minority-- or have been-- and the team that has lost and lost and lost and lost everywhere and have always made certain to screw up CA-49, want to abandon Applegate and throw their support behind a FuelCell energy lobbyist and wealthy lawyer-- an Orange County Hillary operative from 2016, Mike Levin.Pelosi, now, unfortunately, almost completely senile and a raving idiot, has promised to "push" Applegate out of the race on behalf of Levin. Crazy Nancy doesn't understand that marine colonels backed by an activated grassroots don't get pushed by a discredited and failed establishment. Levin was a regular contributor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign but hasn't given any money towards defeating Issa. He now sees a path for himself to take advantage of Applegate's work and run against Issa himself. The party's vile corrupted establishment, triumphed yesterday in the DNC race, and is determined to keep pushing their careerist agenda. It's time for progressives to realizer the former progressive champion they once had in Nancy Pelosi is now a very different, very unsupportable, Nancy Pelosi. For the Democratic Party to prosper, she's got to go.That's Applegate on the left
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