John Zaring: Why elect Christy Smith

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Let’s be honest … it’s been another ridiculous week in presidential politics.

As a father to two daughters, I am ashamed and shocked that any Americans still think the boorish national embarrassment that is Donald J. Trump is somehow still deserving of a vote for anything other than groper-in-chief.

And as more women step forward with their own tales, it will only get more and more strange.

It’s obvious that those in Trump’s “basket of deplorables” will never abandon him, but what about everyone else?

Well, his support is shrinking and shrinking fast, and as a result his campaign is sinking faster than the Titanic. It is now wildly probable that Trump will be buried under an electoral avalanche of historic proportions on Nov. 8, which means Hillary Clinton will become America’s first female president ever.

And that’s great news for my daughters and yours. I expect the last laugh will be theirs.

Last week’s The Rational Center enumerated the many reasons why Bryan Caforio is the better choice for Congress than Knight, so this particular column will focus on why moderate Democrat Christy Smith is the superior candidate in the 38th Assembly District race.

Smith is a hometown girl with hometown values, a onetime Hart High School cheer captain and ASB president, who went to College of the Canyons before graduating with honors from UCLA with a degree in political science in 1993.

She has served with distinction for the past six years as a member of the Newhall School District board. Her moderate views come from 34 years of life in Santa Clarita and inform why she was resoundingly re-elected with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans. She’s never lost a race.

Acosta, who is in only his second year on the Republican-controlled Santa Clarita City Council while also collecting a paycheck as the field rep for Knight until the primary election, proudly trumpets his partisan moorings.

In the primary, Acosta blissfully positioned himself as the candidate most Trump-like in the race, using coded buzz words intended to co-opt the brash businessman’s image.

Now, with Trump plummeting to a hard landing, the messaging in Acosta’s latest mailers has shifted from “Not Politically Correct” and proudly “Conservative” to “Bipartisan” and “Independent.”

Really, Dante? Did you think no one would notice your cynical Etch-a-Sketch shift from conservative to bipartisan?

Smith, on the other hand, has actually demonstrated a willingness and ability to work across the aisle and has piled up a track record of putting people before politics.

Prior to her election to the Newhall school board, Smith served on PTA and site council for Valencia Valley Elementary School. She later represented Hart High on the William S. Hart Union High School District’s Advisory Committee and was founding chairwoman of the Valencia Valley Education Foundation.

She currently is co-chair of the “Raising The Curtain” capital campaign to restore the Newhall Auditorium.

Smith also mastered the art of advocacy while serving as the legislative chairwoman for the SCV Trustees Association and from her role as chairwoman of Newhall’s $60 million Measure E Prop 39 bond campaign, which voters approved in 2014.

These are just some of the reasons people love her, regardless of their party affiliation. She is one of us.

Her reputation as a bit of a policy wonk stems from several years of working in Washington, D.C., as an analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and from an intimate knowledge of state policy gained during her service on the California School Board Association.

Christy Smith is the real deal. Her deep grasp of policy, forward-looking vision, moral clarity and hometown values means she’s much better prepared and far better equipped than her untested rival to represent all of us, each of us, in Sacramento, where let’s face it, Democrats run everything.

That’s why it is better to have Christy in the room instead Dante on the outside, subjugated to looking in through the window.

After decades of protest votes in Sacramento, it’s time for a new approach. Elect Christy Smith, and in the process break another glass ceiling on Nov. 8.

John Zaring’s columns are called too conservative by liberals and too liberal by conservatives – thus his claim to “The Rational Center.” He lives in Castaic, is a registered Democrat and has been an SCV resident since 2000.

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