Thousand Oaks Republican Women–Candidate’s Forum
By Debra Tash
Wednesday, cost March 19th 2014: Thousand Oaks Republican Women Federated held a candidate’s forum at the North Ranch Country Club. Robert Kaufman, try Ph.d, buy a professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine, moderated the event.
Four hopefuls were spotlighted while another, Mark Reed vying for Brad Sherman’s seat in the 30th Congressional District-San Fernando Valley, was also in attendance. Mr. Reed, an actor, businessman and conservative, is advocating for smaller government and a return to Constitutional government.
Pete Peterson running for State Controller
First up was Pete Peterson running for State Controller. He assured the audience that Pete Peterson was, in fact, his real name. He hails from Santa Monica. He said when he is allowed to leave the city it reduces the Republican population by one quarter. He has a background in both the private and public sector. He is the executive director for the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement at Pepperdine as well as having founded the bi-partisan organization, Common Sense California in 2007. Mr Peterson believes he has a good chance of winning his race. There is no incumbent and he is actually looking at being State Controller as an end, not a means to higher office. He vowed to clean up the voter rolls and to reduce the corporate filing fees, which are the highest in the nation. He said of the state’s registered voters: “We don’t know how accurate our voter database is.”
Second to the lectern was Pastor Rob McCoy who is running for the 44th assembly seat being vacated by Jeff Gorrell. He opened by asking if a
Rob McCoy running for Assembly
pastor can run for office. He is always introduced by the title. McCoy said, “I’ve been a Republican longer than I’ve been a Christian.” McCoy has been a minister at Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park for 14 years. He said of the Republicans: “I dearly love this party.” McCoy also addressed the problem of the Faith community not voting. Only 25% in the last election went to the polls. They would be a huge force in politics, especially in this state, if they were engaged.
Rafael Dagnesses running for Congress
Rafael Dagnesses was the third speaker and is running against Jeff Gorell for the seat now held by Democrat Julia Brownley in the 26th congressional district. He labeled himself as a: “Born again American.” Born in socialist/communist Cuba he appreciates being an American citizen. Raised in a poor section of Los Angeles, Dagnesses grew up and served in the armed forces and became a Los Angeles policeman when he returned home and later started his own company. He learned early: “Not to be envious of those who have achieved success.”
Mario De La Piedra running for Assembly
Last up was Mario De La Piedra. He is running against McCoy for the 44th Assembly district. He introduced his fiancé and spoke his mother. His mmother was single when she raising De La Pidra’s older brother. He said she made the best of meager resources and has been a life long Republican. De La Piedra is a small business owner and community leader. He is local, growing up in Fillmore and now residing in Camarillo. He said, “We need to start basing our leadership on their performance.”
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Debra Tash is Editor-in-Chief of Citizensjournal.us, past president for Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, business executive and award-winning author, residing in Somis
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Like that Pete Petersen is running for State Controller. A lot can be done in that position by a man willing to do it. The Assembly race is one the the Republican can win, Pastor Mc Coy would no doubt be a force to be reckoned with in Sacramento, he is to make the pun ‘The real Mc Coy”. We walks what he talks.
Charles has some interesting questions. May I suggest that an abundance of the quetions would be more approriately answered by a more in-depth look at the candidates he mentioned.
That is not a critcism of the reporting. After all, you can only report on this meeting, not make an in-depth study of all candidates. That can happen with individual meetings with each candidate.
In the case of Pastor McCoy, other than Huckabee, when was the last time you heard of a Minister in politics? It’s not the usual thing you see and some additional comments may be appropriate here.
As the election season commences we may want to go into more detail on all candidates credentials. Who know’s, maybe a person of the cloth might just be what we need. After all, we’ve had a lot of people without his credentials running govenment in a fashion that has put us in our present situation.
Thank you, Mr. Muller for your comments. There were too few candidates there to get a very good impression on our best choice for each office. The candidates were only allowed five minutes to speak and then Mr. Kaufman took questions. The event was held on March 19th. It was well attended, except for the number of candidates. We were disappointed at not hearing from Mr. Gorell or anyone representing him. His campaign has been somewhat mute. Ms. Brownley’s however has been sending out reams of press releases to all the local news outlets. Pastor McCoy spoke mostly about how he is not just a pastor but first and foremost a Republican. DePiedra was actually quite impressive, young man who truly appreciates this country. Peterson said the rolls are a mess and cleaning them up is something he is quite able to do. I hope this addresses your questions. Thank you.
Thank you for writing about this. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of coverage of the primary, which is just as important as the general election. Your article raises almost as many questions as it answers.
When was this event held? Why was there only one statewide candidate there? Why does “Pete” want to focus on cleaning up the voter rolls? Isn’t that the task of the Secretary of State? Bowen is doing a terrible job at that. Are the Republicans running anyone against her? If so, why the heck wasn’t he/she at this “forum?” How does “Pete” intend to reduce corporate filing fees? Doesn’t the legislature set those? Is he going to do anything else significant? Help balance the budget, catch fraud, misappropriations? Anything? Does he have any financial credentials?
Didn’t The Republican Women/moderator take any questions? Or was it just another hack show and tell?
I assume that Dagnesses is running for Congress, although you didn’t say that. One might assume that since Brownley is the incumbent and last I heard she was in the U.S. House of Representatives. What does he plan to do there, if on some remote chance, he wins? Or is he just running on “identity politics?” What is Gorell going to do, besides hand the country over to illegal immigrants and empty the treasury to pay for entitlements? Are there any significant differences in what they vow to do between him and Brownley? Dagnesses?
Did they run DePiedra to split the vote or what?
And what is “Pastor” McCoy supposed to do in office? You wrote nary a word about that. Is that because he said nary a word about it or because you are just fascinated by the idea of a cleric running for office?