Normally a horrible campaign fund-raiser, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Skipped Vietnam War Combat Duty) is showing real signs that he's worried about winning re-election to his 20th and 21st years in the House of Representatives.
Since Oct. 18, Rohrabacher—a Huntington Beach resident—reports grabbing $106,500 from large donors, including Wall Street-related political-action committees (PACs); banking interests; oil-company individuals; out-of-state real-estate developers; musician Sammy Hagar; a business seeking NSA contracts; and Lloyd Kaufman, a Hollywood producer of raunchy sexploitation and slasher films.
In comparison, Democratic challenger Debbie Cook, who was already substantially trailing Rohrabacher in campaign financial activity, has disclosed raising $31,675 from large donors since Oct. 22. Some of these contributors include the Sierra Club, union PACs, Democrat-leaning groups and a novelist, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Both campaigns are airing local cable-TV commercials. Rohrabacher's are accidentally funny. One man appears in an ad claiming the congressman has been—get this—a champion for the environment. (He supports oil drilling near California's beaches.) One eye-twitching elderly woman also asserts that Rohrabacher, one of the most narrow-minded members of Congress, enjoys listening to citizen concerns. (He reacted to citizen concerns about the Iraq War by telling them he hopes their families die in a terrorist attacks.)
One big disappointment: No word in the Rohrabacher ads if his active investigation has solved the already-solved June 1968 assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel.
And finally, a note to KOCE reporter David Nazar: You recently stated something about Rohrabacher having fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Really? Do tell.
— R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.