To Beat Darrell Issa We Need Unity, Not Pelosi Sucking Up To Rich Contributors And Their Puppets

Trump congratulating Issa on getting Pelosi to encourage some rich guy to run against Doug Applegate

Monday we mentioned-- in passing-- a poll that Darrell Issa had taken, which he had tried to keep secret, that shows him losing badly in 2018 to Doug Applegate. The next day, the L.A. Times confirmed the secret poll's existence and went into some depth about what it shows.

We'll get to it in a minute but it's especially important in a certain context. A Democratic establishment mega-donor and close crony of Pelosi's-- Virginia transplant Ira Lechner-- wants a crony of his, Mike Levin, to be the candidate against Issa in 2018, regardless of the work Dpug Applegate has done in uniting the San Diego-Orange County district against Issa. Lechner is a cliueless rich guy who has run for office himself over and over-- losing all the big races-- and getting his pal in is his last hurrah. Pelosi-- whose political life revolves around super-serving mega-donors like Lechner-- has promised to help "push" Applegate out of the race, not understanding that doddering political hacks don't get to "push" Marine colonels around any more, not when the progressive grassroots is sick of the doddering hacks and standing behind the only Democrat to have ever effectively gone after Issa.

The L.A. Times reported that the "internal poll by Issa’s campaign showed a nearly 10-percentage point drop in his favorability ratings between mid-October and early December-- and that one likely reason the lawmaker’s image took a hit was because of his support for President Trump." Applegate's TV ads had been very effective. What a shame the DCCC waited til the very end of the election before jumping in to help Applegate. Had the backed him from the beginning of his run, Issa would just be a bad memory now. "Overall," continued the Times report, "the poll suggested Issa was hurt significantly by negative television advertising. On Oct. 18, he had a 40% unfavorable rating, a score that rose to 49% by Dec. 7. His favorable rating edged down from 42% to 41% during that time. The poll found that voters who saw television ads remembered Issa’s ties to Trump more than any other detail. And when voters had negative things to say about their representative, his support for Trump was at the top of the list. Issa, one of Trump’s highest-profile supporters in last year’s campaign, has since distanced himself from the president and his administration."

In the context of the poll and the demands from constituents in the last month, it makes sense why Issa decided to hold the [town hall] meeting, said Robert Dempsey, the campaign manager for Issa’s opponent last year, Democrat Doug Applegate.

“We know that when we hold our elected officials accountable, they have to stand up and stand by their records,” he said. “If I was Congressman Issa, I would not want to be in that position, which is why he is doing those town hall meetings, and seemingly moving to the center, and joining the climate change caucus.”

Issa defeated Applegate by 0.6%, a 1,621-vote margin. Applegate immediately announced he would seek a rematch in 2018. The congressman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the poll.

The survey and analysis were contained in documents for an unsuccessful $10-million libel lawsuit Issa had filed against Applegate. A judge dismissed that case on Friday.

The key now is to make sure Pelosi and her serially-failed DCCC don't wreck the Democrats' chance to beat Issa but going along with Ira Lechner's demand that his friend be the nominee. Lechner's ugly establishment elitism is the very embodiment of what ails the Democratic Party and what has turned a populist and progressive political party into a party voters see-- at best-- as the lesser of two evils. Please consider helping Doug Applegate crush the corrupt Democratic establishment and Darrell Issa. (Tap the thermometer on the left.) Eric Lichtblau's report on Issa's self-dealing in this morning's NY Times is a doozy-- A Businessman in Congress Helps Himself and Himself. The "And Himself" part will help galvanize more support for Doug Applegate as the 2018 election heats up even this early. "Most wealthy members of Congress," wrote Lichtblau, "push their financial activities to the side, with many even placing them in blind trusts to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest. But Mr. Issa, one of Washington’s richest lawmakers, may be alone in the hands-on role he has played in overseeing a remarkable array of outside business interests since his election in 2000."

[B]eyond specific actions that appear to have clearly benefited his businesses, Mr. Issa’s interests are so varied that some of the biggest issues making their way through Congress affect him in some way.

After the forced sale of Merrill Lynch in 2008, for instance, he publicly attacked the Treasury Department’s handling of the deal without mentioning that Merrill had handled hundreds of millions of dollars in investments for him and lent him many millions more.

And in an era when the auto industry’s future has been a big theme of public policy, Mr. Issa has been outspoken on regulatory issues affecting car companies, while maintaining deep ties to the industry through the auto electronics company he founded, DEI Holdings.

He has a seat on its board, and his nonprofit family foundation, which seeks to encourage values like “hard work and selfless philanthropy,” has earned millions from stock in DEI, which bears his initials. Mr. Issa’s fortune, in fact, was built on his car alarm company, and to this day it is his deep voice on Viper alarms that warns potential burglars to “please step away from the car.”

In recent months, the New York Times has examined how some lawmakers have championed particular industries, pushing measures to protect and enrich supporters. In Mr. Issa’s case, it is sometimes difficult to separate the business of Congress from the business of Darrell Issa.

...As the influential chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Mr. Issa has proven both a reliable friend to business and a constant annoyance to an Obama administration that he sees as anti-business. Even before formally taking over the committee in December, he made headlines by asking 150 businesses and trade groups to identify regulations that they considered overly burdensome, and he has issued numerous subpoenas on his own authority in investigating programs he believes are harmful.

His pro-business policies usually align closely with those of the firms he has worked with in his wide-ranging business career both before and after he joined Congress. Congress has historically had more than its share of millionaires from storied American fortunes, from the Rockefellers to the Kennedys. But typically, those members lower their business profiles considerably and limit their active dealings to avoid potential conflicts of interest and the political repercussions that might follow from private business decisions.

...The lines between Mr. Issa’s many interests have also become entangled in his frequent criticism of regulators and his frequent defense of Wall Street. At a series of hearings in 2009, Mr. Issa accused Treasury officials of a “cover-up” of their role in Bank of America’s $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch months earlier. Most pointedly, he accused Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, of bullying Bank of America “behind closed doors” into buying Merrill Lynch at bargain rates and then lying about it.

“I for one,” Mr. Issa told the Fed chairman, “am looking at Main Street America, the stockholders who in some cases got less than they would have gotten through other means. This includes Chrysler, General Motors and, of course, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.”

Mr. Issa did not mention his own extensive links to Merrill Lynch.

In a television interview days later, however, he said: “I bank at Merrill Lynch. I’m very well aware that every broker there, all the people who were stockholders, were furious that they were in fact being fire-saled to them.”

And Mr. Issa is no ordinary Merrill customer.

His transactions there have totaled more than a billion dollars in the last decade, records show. In the aftermath of the firm’s acquisition in September 2008, in fact, he bought and sold at least $206 million in Merrill Lynch mutual funds in the next 15 days, records show.

His ties to the bank deepened last year, records show, as Merrill Lynch gave him two “personal notes” for lines of credit worth at least $75 million.

Likewise, Mr. Issa has aggressively defended Goldman Sachs, another Wall Street giant.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a major lawsuit charging Goldman with fraud last year, Mr. Issa fired back by opening an investigation. The timing of the lawsuit, he said, smacked of a “partisan political agenda” meant to help President Obama and bolster a bill overhauling financial regulations.

His charge drew nationwide attention, putting regulators on the defensive, but the S.E.C. inspector general later found “no evidence” of political meddling.

Mr. Issa came to Goldman’s defense again last month in a letter to regulators complaining about restrictions on financial firms. Broker dealers “such as Goldman Sachs” faced “a substantial reduction in leverage” because of excessive capital requirements, he wrote.

As with Merrill Lynch, Mr. Issa is keenly interested in Goldman’s performance.

A few weeks before opening his inquiry into the Goldman lawsuit, in fact, he bought another large batch of shares in one of the firm’s high-yield mutual funds, records show. By the end of the year, his stake in Goldman’s fund was worth as much as $25 million.