CrandALL for Congress   

I'm an open book. For better or worse.

Despite moving to 13 different cities before graduating Laguna Hills High School in 1996, I consider myself an OC kid. I met my wife in high school and we've been together ever since. I'm the father of 9 year-old twins, and I of course have the obligatory OC doodle dog; an Aussiedoodle named Tucker to be more specific. I have lived in Irvine for 10 years (I've also lived in Corona Del Mar, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Santa Margarita, and Laguna Hills). I lived all over California as a kid, I lived in Taiwan after college, and in DC for a summer during grad school, but OC will always be my home. Our family is fortunate enough to own our home here, but that is becoming nearly impossible now with increased prices and interest rates.

I studied Economics during undergrad at San Diego State and again during my masters degree at Claremont Graduate University. I've always been drawn to using economics to understand political decision making. Turns out it is pretty simple. People do what is good for them as individuals, even when in government...especially when they're elected to office. Before grad school I audited mortgage backed securities transactions at Deloitte and managed loan flow at a mortgage startup called Everyloan. I saw the financial storm coming in 2006 and decided to go to grad school. After grad school I began teaching Economics at the collegiate level. I've been a college professor for almost a decade and have taught at Chapman University, Loyola Marymount, California Baptist University, the University of Laverne and others. I currently teach micro and macroeconomics at Santa Ana College. I love teaching, especially when the ideas of opportunity cost and trade-offs click in my students' minds.

Since 2018, in addition to being a professor, I have formed 2 companies designed to use the private sector to fix the systemic problems in our political system. The first is a nonprofit called VotingSmarter. I built a team of 135 volunteers who conducted over 4,000 hours of political research on candidates. We used those data to build a "Dating App for Elections" that matched users to political candidates based on political issues rather than political party, race, gender, age, or other immutable characteristics. Because let's be honest, busy people like you have been using those as shortcuts for decades and look where that has gotten us. We have the same problems year after year and approval ratings of Congress and the President get lower and lower. In 2020 we helped thousands of voters see how well they matched with every candidate running for President, Governor, House, and Senate nationwide. Even though our users felt empowered by being more informed, they expressed that they believed their vote hadn't changed anything and they wanted more political influence beyond Election Day.

So that's when my team of former students, volunteers, and I founded a for-profit company called Shoppyist. While looking for ways to give our users more political influence we discovered the only way to get political power is to buy it. That's why we've been building a shopping app that matches users to brands based on those brands' political donations and each user's individual beliefs. I call it my single mom super PAC, because growing up my mom was VERY political but we never had an extra penny to donate to a politician. Little did she know that every time she bought Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo, Stouffer's microwave dinners, or Coca-Cola that she was making a political donation. (speaking of political donations, see that "Chip In" button at the top?)

Politically I am fiscally conservative, socially libertarian, and fiercely Independent. I believe we need to balance the budget, cut spending, vigorously attack our debt, adopt zero-based budgeting, and audit the DOD and Fed. I believe we need to fight abuse of power in the justice system at the highest levels and in our communities. I believe in your right to believe what you want, love who you want, and put whatever you want in your body (as long as you are willing to accept the consequences). I believe 70-80% of our district believe in common sense solutions to immigration, gun violence, foreign entanglements, the deficit, entitlements, and the like. But I also believe THAT NOTHING WILL GET FIXED until we address the corruption and hyper-partisanship created by the donor-class. As I said above, politicians are human. We can't expect them to act like saints (accept me of course). We need to change the incentives that are keeping everything broken and driving us apart. That starts with YOU voting for an outsider like me. We might disagree on a specific policy here and there but those honestly don't matter, unless you're one of the 303 people that donated almost 20% of ALL Congressional campaign donations in 2022. I'm going to go to Washington to fight this corruption. I'm not looking to make this a career. I love OC too much to spend half the year away from her for the next decade. But I am willing to do some time and put up a good fight for you and your kids, and me and mine. Because the American Dream is fading and it may not be there for them like it was for me and my wife. Join me in this fight. All we have to do is work together and we can Make Politics Sane Again.