Tony Strickland’s big oil-fueled campaign for Congress is getting a turbo charge of cash from some of California’s most extreme conservative special interests and high octane Republican bosses. Strickland has long tried to fool the voters of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties by pretending to be a moderate, environmentally-friendly Republican. But his actual record says otherwise: he has voted in favor of drilling along the California coast, denied the reality of climate change, and founded the so-called “Taxpayers Caucus” which opposes budgets with any added revenue including from oil companies making record profits, choosing instead to cut vital programs such as education. He is currently heading up Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in California, and is a founding member of the California chapter the of the arch-conservative Club for Growth, an organization explicitly devoted to expelling economic moderates from the ranks of the Republican Party.

So it’s not at all surprising that Strickland’s campaign is receiving a tainted wave of contributions from the big corporate backers he truly serves, including the Koch Brothers, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Valero and many others. Not to mention Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Republican budget architect Paul Ryan whose ranks Strickland hopes to join, and who openly voted to end Medicare but protected tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks for big oil companies.

And now Strickland is at it again, the beneficiary of a swanky high-dollar fundraiser at the home of California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro and other leading California Republican establishment figures.

All of that dirty and ideologically-driven money will no-doubt be used to falsely portray Strickland once again as a reasonable, “moderate” Republican he isn’t. This time, however, the voters in California’s 26th Congressional district won’t be fooled. The gloss is off of Strickland’s slickly polished image. Tony has four long years of hyperpartisan votes and fundraising on behalf of his big corporate donors and extremist Republican ideologues. With every dollar he raises from those same interests he confirms what Californians already know: Tony Strickland is bad for California and doesn’t deserve to make decisions for us in Congress.

Cross-posted from WrongforCA.com