A short description of Michael Delavar's race for Congress

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The voters of Washington’s 3rd Congressional District have a very distinct choice this August. There are four candidates, two Democrats and two Republicans. However, what makes the mix rather fun is that the incumbent Democrat, Brian Baird flipped on the war in 2007. This is his first campaign as a pro-war Democrat, something that has angered his base significantly. This is where I step in. I am the strongest candidate to show differences on several issues with the incumbent, but the war is the biggest 800 pound gorilla in the room. My position on the war briefly, just for the record is as follows.

I believe we need to fight our declared enemies with overwhelming force wherever they are. We must do this with the appropriate tools. Our founding fathers gave us two options to go to war, both of which are outlined in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. The first was for Congress to declare war, which is appropriate against a nation-state aggressor. (That is, when it is appropriate to go to war in the first place.) The second, listed immediately after the war power, is to grant letters of marque and reprisal. This is the appropriate tool to fight a non-state aggressor, such as al-Qaida. It authorizes force against the declared enemy outside of US soil, without nation building.

Even if we are going to use this appropriate tool for pursuing our enemies, we must acknowledge simultaneously the need to understand the motivation of those who fight us. Therefore, if they fight us because we are on their soil, or because we are seen as oppressive towards Muslims, we should take that into account. Regardless of whether it was right or wrong for us to invade Iraq, we are there now and we must see that in order to protect America against Islamist terrorists, we must phase out our troops from occupying Muslim soil as soon as possible. We must also stop giving foreign aid. This foreign aid is also a point of contention for the forces against us. We can kill two birds with one stone (pun fully intended) if we end foreign aid.

So, with those positions on the war, imagine the surprise when you hear what happened next. Because of several reasons, the local chairmen of the county parties in the seven districts that comprise the 3rd Congressional decided to push and support an establishment Republican against me. She filed with only minutes to go before the deadline, and came out of nowhere, as far as the congressional race is concerned. However it is her positions that make this the most interesting case yet. She is a pro-war Republican. She is also pro-UN. On those two issues alone, it makes you wonder how anybody could think that a pro-war, pro-UN Republican could dream of beating a pro-war, pro-UN Democrat in heavily Democrat state, in a year that is not favoring Republicans in the first place. Why would the voters give up ten years worth of seniority that Baird has for essentially the same positions? The answer is that they won’t. Nope. They are likely to be energized to vote—even if in protest—for the anti-occupation, anti-UN candidate, Michael Delavar. With apologies to Orwell, every race is a unique one. This one just happens to be more unique than others.

Michael