Joe Michael Cobb: Doing his part for the Libertarians

Paul Clinton

Congressional hopeful Joe Michael Cobb doesn’t harbor any

illusions about his qualifications to unseat Rep. Chris Cox, who has

held the 48th District seat for 12 years.

Cobb, the Libertarian candidate in the field, even credits his

opponent as a Reagan-era Republican who shares many of the same

views.

“I won’t claim that I’m more qualified than Chris Cox,” Cobb said.

“That would be fatuous.”

Cox, Cobb and Democrat John Graham are all running for the

newly-drawn 47th District seat, which covers much of the same

territory as the current district. It includes Newport Beach, but not

Costa Mesa.

Oddly enough, Cobb and Cox share another thing. They both began

their political careers working for Ronald Reagan.

In Cobb’s case, he took a job as the deputy director in the White

House’s Office of Policy Information in 1982, codifying all of the

president’s positions on issues and writing briefing papers for

high-level staff.

In the early 1980s, Cobb linked up with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a

Libertarian-leaning Republican.

Cobb took a job on Paul’s staff as an economist and ultimately

drafted legislation that allowed the U.S. Mint to issue gold-bullion

coins.

Known as the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985, the law rolled back a

ban on the practice imposed in 1933.

After advising several other Republican senators on economic

issues, Cobb left government service, moving to his current home in

Dana Point in 1998 with 19-year-old daughter Ryan.

Two years ago, Cobb ran for the South County U.S. Representative

seat held by Ron Packard until 2001. He collected 3% of the vote and

finished fifth out of five in a race won by Rep. Darrell Issa.

This time around, Cobb said he hopes to pin down 5% of the vote.

Cobb also said he isn’t running a protest campaign aimed at the two

mainstream parties.

“The Libertarian Party is not here to protest anything,” Cobb

said. “We’re here to get the government out of daily life.”

Cobb said he shares many of the classic Libertarian views,

including legalizing drugs and abolishing the income tax.

He is scheduled to participate in an Oct. 21 forum, with Cox and

Graham, that will be taped and then aired by Cox Communications.

Cobb, 58, currently teaches classes on a part-time basis at Orange

Coast, Saddleback and Santa Ana colleges. This semester finds him

teaching three economics classes at OCC.

Cobb has been an active Libertarian since 1972. Even though he has

said he he probably won’t defeat Cox at the polls, he believes

third-party candidates should always have a place on the ballot.

“[Voters] need to have the option,” Cobb said. “It’s the

established method for change.”