If there is one thing Stacey Dash is not clueless about it is the realities of running for public office. We know this because this past Monday she had formally filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for office. She is seeking to occupy the seat in the House of Representatives representing California’s 44th District.
Make no mistake, Stacey has to be entering this race with more than just a Hollywood experience behind her. It helps to be comfortable in front of a camera, but the 44th District has been a Democratic stronghold for some time, so she has her work cut out for her. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton snapped up 83% of the district’s vote. Barack Obama set the standard for the winning tally in both 2012 and 2008 by running up similar margins of Democratic victory.
Dash tweeted, “It’s time to for me to put up or shut up and I want to serve great people. I live in the 44th unlike some who don’t live in their districts.” At 51, she seems to have picked the right time because waiting any longer would have presented more questions than answers. Apparently she is waiting for the right time for a public announcement of her candidacy.
Her political background is varied. She publicly supported Mitt Romney for president in 2012, and has been a Fox News contributor for a number of years, ending her tenure there in 2016. Dash has a racially mixed background of Bajan, African American, and Mexican, eliminating any campaign chatter about being someone who has had the benefit of “white privilege.” Yet due to her publicly stated support of Republicans and a conservative political leaning, she has been blackballed from Hollywood as an actress. The 44th District of South Los Angeles is as good a place as any to give the Hollywood elite a bloody nose.
Where she is controversial — and may be able to use it to her political advantage — is in stating that if African Americans want true equality they will have to turn their backs on the “plantation mentality” message the Democratic Party has been feeding them for years. Eight years of Barack Obama and they are no better off economically or socially. The people of the 44th District should be able to relate to that message since Obama was definitely a favorite of the Hollywood elite, the same people that rejected Stacey Dash because she chose to not follow the Hollywood Party Line. Perhaps even more controversial, and apparently aiming at the Hollywood elites, is when she said cable stations such as BET should stop operations instead of creating a separate class of programming and awards that excludes everyone but blacks.
The question is whether she has a realistic chance of winning. Until she publicly announces her candidacy, we won’t be able to know who will actually be supporting her, either with political endorsements or the necessary cold, hard cash required to run an effective campaign. From a Republican view, she is the right candidate for the 44th District. Her mixed ethnic heritage, her poverty-to-success story, and her public support of President Trump on specific issues are significant factors to bring to the voters of Los Angeles. The question the voters will have to answer is whether they are satisfied with the status quo of the results of 12 consecutive years of Democratic leadership.
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