Richard Lara for Congress

Written by: Richard Lara on Feb 23, 2008 4:14 AM EST

The Following is an email exchange Between Richard Lara, candidate for Congress in the 46th Congressional District, and Rich Gilloch, Debbie Cook Supporter.

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Hi Rich,

Thank you for your email. I hope that all is well with you.

Yes, I am a candidate in the 46th congressional district. I think that you are right when you say that we should clear the way for the first credible candidate in 20 years, so why don't you ask Debbie Cook to drop out of the race.

I am in the race for the 46th CD because I have no confidence in any of the other candidates in the race. So even if I did drop out, I would be disinclined to support Debbie Cook.

Furthermore, Debbie is not the one who should have a problem with me entering the race. A number of months ago, I asked her if she planned on running for Congress in the 46th. She said that she had looked at the numbers and, being a realist, she decided that there was no way she could win and thus no way she would run. Now she wants to run. If anything, I should be complaining about her indecision. But the fact is that my supporters and I do not mind if she stays in the race because we believe that it will become clear in the primary that she is not our best candidate.

Don't get me wrong, I like what you say in your email about advancing Democratic values in our district by electing a Democrat to Congress, and I like the idea of getting rid of Dana Rohrabacher, too. But when you say that Debbie Cook should be our candidate, I do not agree.

Given what I have gleaned from your email message to me, I suspect that you will likely leave this email exchange thinking, and saying to others, that I am being unreasonable by staying in the race. Be that as it may, I would draw your attention to the fact that you are asking me to drop out of the race without even inquiring about my campaign, my positions on the issues, and my goals for this district and for the country. This clearly implies that your decision to support Debbie Cook over me is grounded neither in reason nor in fact. You should also know that the unreasoned and uninformed nature of your decision to support Cook over me undermines the credibility of her candidacy in so much as you, one of her supporters, represent her campaign.

There is no difference between the blind support that Bush and Cheney has enjoyed over much of the last eight years and your blind support of Cook. Personally, I have had enough of that kind of thing, and I am ready for a change.

Moreover, it is clear to me that Cook and her supporters want the primary to be as easy for her as possible. This, too, undermines the credibility of her candidacy in my mind. I do not want a representative who sends her supporters to beg me, a hard working candidate, to make for things easy for her by dropping out of the primary. I want a representative who rises boldly to challenges rather than shrinks back from them. I confront challenges this way, and that is one of the reasons I am running.

I am inclined to invite you to rethink your decision to support Debbie Cook, but then I wonder if I should waste my keystrokes since it seems that, for you, thought plays no significant role in such decisions. As for me, my decision to run is motivated by good intentions, good reasons, and a good grasp of the relevant facts.

I challenge you to look at the email you sent me and to consider how utterly insubstantial it is. If you do this, you can only conclude that it would be foolish of me to comply with your very odd request. However, I suspect that your blind support of Cook will not permit you to appreciate my perfectly accurate assessment of your your email message. Even if it does permit you to appreciate it, and I mean no disrespect when I say this, I suspect that you would not be up to the challenge of acting on this assessment by placing a little critical distance between yourself and Debbie Cook and allowing the Democratic process to take its course.

Penultimately, I would like to thank you for not trying to persuade me to exit the race by threatening, as other Cook supporters have threatened, that bad things will happen to me if I don't drop out of the race and support Debbie Cook. While these threats do not cause me to worry for myself, they do cause me to be concerned for my supporters and volunteers, and it is refreshing, for a change, not to have to hear such threats from a Debbie Cook supporter.

Finally, regarding the quote you place at the end of your email, I could not agree more that what we give is what we take with us when we leave this world. I believe that I have more to give to the 46th Congressional District than any other candidate, and that is why I am in the race.

Best wishes,

Richard Lara
Democratic Candidate for Congress in the 46th Congressional District

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Richard Gillock wrote:

Hi Richard,

I saw on the OC Registrar of Voters that you were
listed as a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 46th CD.

I would appreciate it if you would withdraw and publicly support Debbie Cook for Congress.

We should clear the way for the first credible candidate we have had in 20 years in the 46th, and make it easier for the state party to endorse her in the Primary on June 3. It will help her to raise money for the campaign to defeat Dana Rohrabacher, and that is what we all want.

Let's join together to kick the Republicans out of the 46th.

Thanks for doing this.

Rich Gillock

"What we take with us when we leave this world is
what we have given to others."

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Location: Huntington Beach, CA 92647