But the GOP incumbent, Dana Rohrabacher of California, has a solid GOP district, while the Democratic challenger, Ron Varasteh, has raised barely any money to fund his campaign.
As of his September 30 official campaign report, Varasteh had raised a mere $6,656, a drop in the bucket given that the average winning congressional campaign in 2008 cost just under $1.1 million.
“It doesn’t look like Varasteh is taking this seriously or making any real effort,” said one long-time campaign activist.
The June primary results suggest Varasteh will be lucky to get one-third of the vote. In California’s new open primary system, Rohrabacher was the sole Republican running and got 66 percent of the vote. Varasteh was the sole Democrat in the race and got 29 percent while independent Alan Schlar took the remaining 5 percent and will not be on the ballot next week.
Rohrabacher, who was once a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, is a very conservative Republican who has taken a great deal of interest in the Middle East. He has long supported the Mojahedin-e Khalq, often spoken in the group’s behalf and vocally advocated its removal from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
But Varasteh has not raised that issue in the campaign material published on his website.
The congressional district has a large number of Iranian-Americans. The district, #48, is located entirely in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles, and runs along the coast taking in such communities as Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.
Varasteh doesn’t say anything about his Iranian ethnicity on his website. He was, however, born in San Francisco, where he grew up. He now lives in Irvine, where the political center is far to the right of that in notoriously liberal San Francisco.
Varasteh got a BS in electrical engineering and an MS in computer engineering, both from California State University in Fullerton. He runs a hi-tech small business in Orange County. Describing himself as “in a relationship,” he has no children and turns 48 just days before the election.
In his campaign website, Varasteh talks about US policy on Iran this way: “We hear the war drums beating yet again for another unnecessary war, this time with Iran. The decision to go to war should only be considered after all diplomatic options have been exhausted. The people around the world, as well as the people in the United States and Iran, expect our nation above all other nations to behave as the beacon of light for freedom and peace.”
He says he supported sending troops into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks because the United States had been attacked. But he said the only proper mission for US troops there was to get Osama bin Laden. “Now that this goal has been met, it is time for us to return home as soon as possible,” he writes.
Of his domestic philosophy, he says: “I believe in the free market system, but not in crony capitalism which privatizes profits and socializes losses. I believe in a free market system with adequate safeguards for consumers and protection of our environment. I believe in a free market system with a level playing field between capital and labor, one that provides safe working conditions and living wages not subject to threats of ‘outsourcing’.”
