I asked the GOP candidate running for congress in the Coachella Valley if she lived here. Her response left me with questions.

By
Casey Dolan
-
(Facebook)

Erin Cruz is running as the Republican candidate against the incumbent, Democrat Dr. Raul Ruiz, in this November’s election to represent California’s 36th District in The House of Representatives. Since coming in second in the primary in March and advancing to the fall election, I have been following Cruz’s twitter feed, which typically consists of calls to recall California’s governor, conspiracy theories, and retweets from Donald Trump’s account. One thing that seems to be lacking in all of her tweets has been any sort of connection to the 36th District or the Coachella Valley. Now, you may recall, just two years ago, the Republican candidate for the 36th had some questionable ties to the desert, so, on Tuesday night, I asked Cruz if she lived here and, umm, the response has left me with more questions than answers.

Cruz, who lists a San Diego address to mail donations to on her website, tweeted her thoughts about the Riverside County Supervisors not voting to rescind the county’s health orders on Tuesday.  Seeing as how it was something that to had to do with the area she would be representing, I decided to ask Erin Cruz if she was indeed living in the county she was calling out:

Below is her response:

Okay, a few things to unpack here, but I think we should start start with “I live in Coachella Valley.”  A couple of thoughts on that:

  1. It’s usually called The Coachella Valley.
  2. Anyone from Riverside County telling someone else from the county about their residence usually gets more specific, assuming they would know the individual cities – so something like “I live in Palm Springs” or “My house is in Indio.”  I mean, it’s my experience that when I ask someone from the 909 where they live, they don’t say something like “In Inland Empire, in the 41st District.”  I guess it’s possible that some people do that, but I have never seen it.

The next point, why is she pointing out that “Coachella Valley” is “in the 36th District” almost immediately? Now, I am not saying she doesn’t live in the 36th district, but much like how a child who leads off a conversation with “I didn’t take any cookies” without me bringing up anything at all about cookies, it leads me to want to see what’s been going on in the cookie jar lately.

The “California born and raised” thing seems like the least odd thing about the response, it’s still out of place for a simple question about living in the county – and doesn’t ring quite the same way that “Palm Desert” or “La Quinta” born and raised might,” but we’ll just move past that.

Finally, and this is the thing that I can’t get out of my head, “It’s public record.”  Umm, okay. It’s possible she felt accused because I asked if she “actually” lived in the county – and that’s my bad. The thing is, I wasn’t looking for a public records request, just some sort of confirmation that a person running to represent my community in congress did, in fact, actually live in my community.

Now I am not saying that she is not a resident of the county or the Coachella Valley, but her tweet left me with more questions than answers, so I asked a follow up:

But, I never heard back.  Perhaps Cruz was too busy tweeting this information about her drive through “So-Cal” instead:

Update: Erin Cruz has responded with a comment on our Facebook page.  It is posted below, unedited:

As a blogger or media (which I have now found out) he simply could have sent our campaign an email stating his inquiry. My twitter bio contains my city of residence (Palm Springs) and my campaign website.

Unfortunately, social media is restricted to characters. Given the tone of his tweet, I wanted to respond as detailed as possible. I have lived in Palm Springs for a few years and love it. With regards to the word ‘the’… Perhaps language is on of those fluid things where over time, newer residents pick up using The Coachella Valley, or—it could be language grows and the word ‘the’ is removed over generations.

Interestingly enough, and on a tangent—There is a county in the North, it is called Del Norte. They know the newcomers of recent years to the town, and about how long they have been there by they way they pronounce the name: Del Nōrtā! The long time residents pronounce it Del Nōrt! It takes time, even years they have said for folks who move there to transition and some never have. Even sign language has transformed over time.

Should anyone want further information on me, on the campaign— I have FAQ pages…. my website for the campaign is erincruz.org my professional / artist/ work site is erincruz.com — there are hundreds of hours of videos, interviews on HLN, NBC, Fox News, many newspapers CA state wide, Epoch Times, available by googling my name. Just know, we may not all agree 100% of the time—but we really need to find an 80/20 split.

I am running for Congress because I care about California and the 36th District. I am not happy with the direction Congress is going. Big money, Big Lobby hide behind the curtain in this valley and our Congressman and I believe our people deserve better.

Thank you, Simon for responding to Jules and thank you Jules for helping give people accurate information. Our votes matter and understanding our candidates can help in this important decision.

PS. You can sign up for my campaign emails and when the county opens up we will hold events/gatherings (at no cost) where I will be available to meet those interested if we have not met already over the last few years.

Stay safe. ??

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