Can Anyone Trust Pete Aguilar?

Substance abuser and New Dem Petey-Pie lets his hair down

I don't think even someone as astoundingly incompetent as Steve Israel could lose CA-31-- the Inland Empire congressional district-- for the Democrats again this year, despite having maneuvered to get an ethics-free, corrupt ex-lobbyist,  Pete Aguilar, the nomination. After all, the district has a PVI of D+5, Obama won it both times with 57% and the Republican incumbent Israel allowed to slip in in 2012, Gary Miller, is retiring. Almost nothing short of a coke bust-- always possible considering the photo above-- or a rape will keep Aguilar from beating GOP outsider Paul Cabot, despite Chabot coming in first in the primary with 14,163 votes (26.6%) to Aguilar's 9,242 (17.4%). And a Republican came in in 3rd place as well, Lesli Gooch, with 9,033 votes (17.0%). Aguilar is counting on the 19,074 votes (35.8%) 3 other Democrats-- Eloise Reyes, Joe Baca and Danny Tillman-- got in the race. And I'm sure he'll get some of them, although Baca hates him with a passion and is telling people to not vote for him; Tillman told him to go screw himself when he asked for his support; and Reyes isn't much of a fan either, despite giving him a polite pro forma endorsement. Baca and Tillman point right to Steve Israel's heavy-handed bumbling for why they won't back Aguilar now. Even Gregg Walden, the GOP version of Israel admits that it would be next to impossible for the Republicans to hold the district.

As of the June 30 FEC filings, Aguilar had raised $1,327,366, spent $1,021,285 and was sitting with $325,729 cash on hand. Chabot had only raised $164,912 and was sitting on a pitiful $26,342. Southern California Republicans Kevin McCarthy, Ken Calvert, Duncan Hunter and Darrell Issa have promised to raise him enough cash to stay competitive with Aguilar.

There has been no outside interest from independent right-wing groups in helping Chabot so far and the DCCC and its House Majority PAC have spent $162,753 on Aguilar already and plan to spend a lot more (in a district that should be a gimme). Robert Conaway won the Democratic nomination to run in the 8th district, due north and east of the 31st. It's one of California's reddest districts (PVI is R+10) and Obama lost to McCain and to Romney with 42% each year. In 2012, the two highest vote-getters in the open primary were Cook and a deranged teabagger, Gregg Imus, andRobert Conaway's wife, Jackie came 4th after 3 Republicans with 14.3%. This time her husband avoided that came fate, coming in second with 18.7%, behind Cook with 58.1% and ahead of the second-ranking Republican, Paul Hannosh who got 13.1%. Friday, Conaway penned an OpEd in one of the local newspapers, Why I Can't Trust Pete Aguilar. Aguilar, who was never really a Democrat until he decided to front for the Chamber of Commerce as "their" appointed Hispanic on the City Council and then as their appointed mayor, is extremely tight with the Republican Machine. His conservative views mesh nicely with them as well.

On February 8, 2014, while winning the California Democratic Party’s pre-endorsement at a caucus in the Antelope Valley, I was personaly promised by Pete Aguilar that he would work with me and looked forward to working with me in Washington.

After both Pete and I earned the full party’s nomination at the California Democratic Party’s state convention on March 9, 2014 and thereafter helped each other by honoring the State Party endorsement to only support each other (despite the pressures from other democrats running against us both in each of our Districts), we both advanced in June as one of the top two finishers (Aguilar is up against Chabot and I against Paul Cook)-- with Aguilar’s supporters spending a reported $1.9 million and well my spending, well less than $5,000 (but I won by more votes and by a bigger margin-- hmm).

On July 17, 2014, long after the primary victories, Candidate Pete Aguilar shows his loyalty and trustworthiness in an interview with the Washington Post’s Jeff Simon where he says in response to “Who is your favorite republican politician?” Aguilar replies:

“You know what, I am going to say Congress Paul Cook from our area. He is a Great guy. A decorated war veteran. I’ve worked with Paul in the local government world when he was a local mayor as well and just a fantastic individual. We will disagree on a lot of issues, but if I am going to sit a plane with someone from our region, I would love to sit next to Paul Cook and pick his brain and talk about the region”

When I asked the Aguilar campaign to take the link to Facebook and campaign website link down to the Washington Post website-based interview, the campaign manager [Boris] on July 24, 2014 after a San Bernardino County Democratic Central Committee meeting wanted to talk with me and after agreeing it “was an attack” and he “was present at the interview,” conditioned removal of the links on not making a formal protest of what anyone could logically consider to be an endorsement of the opposition candidate.

That the Cook campaign or one of its surrogates will run an ad or send a flyer with Pete Aguilar’s face on it and the text of his praise for Paul Cook is the next problem, as it will be a flyer that will target Democratic voters that last time had the choice between Imus (a Tea Party Republican) and Cook due to the quirk of an open primary.

Politics are dirty in the Inland Empire and while Aguilar may be new to Congressional politics, to me, he is the same ole’ sack of shit and makes me think, just maybe Aguilar thought he was answering the Yankee Stadium fans’ question, “Who’s your daddy?”

And here I always thought Aguilar's daddy was Jerry Lewis… and Steve Israel. Oh, and Herman Aguilar who he told the media had died as an excuse for losing in 2012. Herman is back from the dead and campaigning for him again this year.

Corrupt Inland Empire conservatives rally around their boy Pete Aguilar, including his pal Jerry Lewis,  Bill Emmerson,  Mike Morrell  and, of course, Gary Miller