It’s almost “GO” time for the November elections, and hopefully people are starting to pay attention and are looking to vet candidates to see who they’ll vote for.
In California Congressional District 26, the candidates are incumbent Democrat and Obama favorite Julia Brownley, and Republican nominee and US Navy reserve Commander Jeff Gorell.
Brownley would agree to only one public debate, during Sunday Night Football, no less, so in case you missed it, the Ventura County Star put the entire thing on YouTube (complete with crappy audio for more than half of it) here.
There were several points of interest, like this one where Brownley calls him a “lobbyist”, and Gorell responds:
He said the majority of the funding for Brownley’s campaign has come from special-interest groups from outside the district.
“Why would the incumbent call me a lobbyist?” he said. “Perhaps because she’s trying to distract voters from the fact that I served in a combat zone, that I served in a courtroom, that I served in a classroom and that I’ve served in the California state Capitol. . . . This is a distraction and this is part of a very disappointing and very partisan campaign.”
The debate moderator, VC Star’s Timm Herdt asks Brownley about closing GITMO, and she waffles for over a minute, giving no answer:
Gorell’s bio is here, but in a nutshell he’s a Commander in the Navy Reserve with two Afghanistan recall deployments, the first in 2001. He was a Deputy District Attorney in Ventura County from ’99 to ’06, prior to that worked for Governor Pete Wilson, and more recently a teacher at Cal Lutheran University as well as being the California Assemblyman representing the 44th Assembly District which covers Camarillo, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Oak Park, Port Hueneme, and Thousand Oaks as well as most of Oxnard.
Julia Brownley on the other hand moved here more recently, apparently just to run for the office she now holds, Congresswoman representing the 26th Congressional District. She was an Assemblywoman who was forbidden by term limits from running again, representing the 41st District, where she authored a ban on plastic shopping bags.
So in short, if you want the type of person who likes to ban grocery bags, raise taxes and our electric bills, and will happily move somewhere else when she sniffs a way to move up the political ladder, Brownley is for you, I guess.
If you want someone representing you who’s actually lived here a while, worked here, been a neighbor, and isn’t afraid to put his life on the line when required, the maybe Gorell is more your speed.
A TowDog 
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