If running as a Republican this election isn’t hard enough, try running against a well-financed Congressman who has held the same seat since 1974. Enter David Nelson Jones. The candidate, 25, joined the 30th Congressional District race two days before the filing deadline last March after a phone call from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Despite the enormous challenge of defeating incumbent Congressman and Democratic powerhouse Henry Waxman, Jones speaks about the race with excitement. ‘I can’t just let someone walk into office unopposed,’ Jones said at a Palisades Republican Club meeting last month. ‘A congressman should be accountable to his district.’ At that meeting, Jones said that the two issues that drive his campaign are support for Israel and protecting the environment. He criticized Waxman’s slow response to the summer’s Hezbollah-Israeli warfare, and said that if he is elected he will strongly support Israel during Middle East conflicts. Jones said his time as a volunteer with Israeli defense forces in 2001 forged his strong allegiance to Israeli affairs. In the past, Waxman’s relationship with Israel has been criticized as too close, but not too distant. He is a member of the American Jewish Congress and the Guardians of the Jewish Home for the Aged. Jones supports ‘noncoercive’ approaches to cutting greenhouse emissions. He said that protecting the environment is a Republican issue, but that laws that force drastic changes on consumers and producers are ‘not American.’ A native of Missouri, Jones currently lives with his wife, Jill, in Beverly Hills. Since 2005, he has run a legal research firm called Trial Point. He graduated from American University in 2003, where he studied political science. Between 2002 and 2003, he worked as a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee and he was an intern for Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri).
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