HUMAN EVENTS
CA-09: John Den Dulk vs. Barbara Lee
by John Gizzi
Posted Oct 16, 2006
“I’m not running to win,” said
John Den Dulk, Republican nominee for Congress in California’s
9th District (Oakland) in what has to be one of the most
honest statements ever made by an office-seeker. “I’m
running to witness.”
A former Reagan Administration official and travel agent,
Oakland resident Den Dulk has been involved in Republican
politics since he was a teen-age Republican activist in
Richard Nixon’s unsuccessful race for governor in
1962. His father lost the Republican nomination for Congress
in the same district in 1972.
To be sure, being a Republican candidate meant a bit more
in those days than it does today in a district where former
Democratic Rep. (1970-88) Ron Dellums recently succeeded
Jerry (“Gov. Moonbeam”) Brown as mayor of Oakland.
But Den Dulk is undaunted and, while his chore of defeating
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee is extremely challenging, fellow
conservatives are helping him. Former Atty. Gen. Ed Meese
recently travelled to Alameda County to weigh in for him,
and another Reagan Administration alumnus, Kathy McMichael,
came out of retirement in Florida to relocate to Oakland
to be his campaign manager.
Left-wing four-termer Lee (lifetime American Conservative
Union rating: 4%) is best known as the only member of Congress
to vote against supporting President Bush’s plan
to use military force to respond to 9/11. That speaks volumes
about the longtime top aide and then successor to Dellums,
with whom she traveled to Communist-run Grenada in 1982.
They later wrote a report to the House Armed Services Committee
in support of the airport that was being built on the island
(which the Reagan Administration feared could be used by
Soviet bombers). Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop,
himself an anti-American leftist, was assassinated in a
Communist-led coup in 1983 that was then thwarted by a
U.S. troop landing.
In 1991, the American Communist Party split into two factions
and one of them called itself the Committee of Correspondence.
Barbara Lee was elected to its National Coordinating Committee.
Recalled Herb Romerstein, a former professional staffer
for the House Intelligence Committee and a recognized authority
on communism: “When I wrote an article for Human
Events exposing the C of C and identifying Ms. Lee, she
first denied the whole story, but then admitted it. C of
C decided to no longer list some of their leaders.”
Whether it’s praising Fidel Castro or voting against
a House resolution recognizing the “patriotism and
courage” of U.S. troops in Kosovo, the lady from California’s
9th District can be counted on to do the left’s bidding.
And so the case for conservatives to support John Den Dulk’s
seemingly quixotic candidacy against her couldn’t be
clearer—or more principled.
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Copyright © 2006 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
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