Politicians Lying To Voters? Meet Tony Strickland

Strickland (R) and Khanna (D)-- 2 crooked politicians

Last week 2 of the biggest names among Los Angeles Democratic Party donors told me why they have such antipathy towards Wendy Greuel-- and it has nothing to do with her platform, her policies or even with the fact that she's one of those "ex"-Republicans who now populates the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Nope, each had contributed substantially to her political career-- one massively. The reason neither will give her a dime again was remarkably similar. Both found her ungracious and frighteningly self-absorbed. She's obsessed, both told me, with imagining people contribute to her because of "the cause" and isn't introspective enough to recognize what everyone around her sees-- that the only cause in Wendy Greuel's world is Wendy Greuel and her careerism.

Wendy Greuel is hardly the only politician afflicted with this. Not long ago, we looked at the case of another delusional would-be politician, Ro Khanna, who is refusing to return campaign contributions to donors who feel tricked because he switched districts and is now running against liberal icon, Mike Honda. Same thing happened in the Orlando area where Nick Ruiz told hundreds of contributors he was running against reactionary Republican John Mica, collected thousands of dollars from them, and then decided to run against the most admired progressive in America, Alan Grayson. Ruiz, of course, adamantly refuses to return any of the money that was contributed. Presumably he thinks-- like Greuel and Khanna-- that he is "the cause," irrespective if he's running against a hideous Republican or a beloved progressive. In his world, it's all about Nick Ruiz… so how could anyone be crazy enough to expect him to refund the money?

And this is hardly just a Democratic malady. One of California's most notoriously corrupt politicians, Tony Strickland, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from the folks in CA-26 to run against Julia Brownley. He then cuts deal with Buck McKeon that has McKeon retiring and endorsing Strickland in return for Strickland hiring some of McKeon's otherwise unemployable relatives. But what about all those people in Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Ventura and Oxnard who contributed to Strickland's campaign because they wanted too replace Brownley?

This morning, Lee Rogers, the Democrat Strickland is running against-- if he survives the bloody GOP primary against extremist Steve Knight-- called on Strickland to refund the money to the donors who want their contributions back. His point? Strickland raised the money under false pretenses, the same way Ruiz did in Florida and Khanna did in the Bay Area. Rogers: "This just shows that Tony Strickland doesn’t care about jobs in the 26th District, where he was a candidate two months ago, or in the 25th District, where he is a candidate today. It’s obvious he only cares about one job-- his… This is very dishonest to donors who he told he was running in a different district,” said Rogers. “He should give the money back, but I guess the career politicians do it a different way. I’m a doctor, not a career Sacramento politician. I’ll bring a common-sense, bi-partisan approach to breaking the gridlock in Congress."

This was Strickland's ad when he was running in Ventura County-- putting down people who live in L.A. Now he's running in Los Angeles County.