https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a17980879/sara-jacobs-interview-california-congress/

It’s 5:30 p.m. at a trendy brewpub in Encinitas, California, with 25 beers on draft, and Sara Jacobs can’t have any of them.

Jacobs, 29, a Democratic candidate for Congress in California, has invited a handful of local community college students to tell her what’s on their mind: student debt, mental health services, a lack of basic health care. They’ll do it over drinks, because even in 2018, the worn adage persists that a candidate should be relatable enough to have a beer with. Before the waitress pours the beer, though, she asks to see everyone’s license. That’s when it hits her: Jacobs doesn’t have her ID.

Her campaign manager calls her political director, who walks in a few minutes later with Jacobs’s wallet, and inside, her California state ID. The waitress studies it and then pours her a sorely-needed glass. You do have to be at least 25 to run for Congress, Jacobs reminds us.

In a year when a record number of women are running for office, Jacobs, 29, stands out: If she wins her race, in California’s 49th district, she could be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. New York Republican Elise Stefanik, who was 30 years old when she was elected in 2014, currently holds that distinction. (A handful of other women running, including Pennsylvania’s Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, who will be 27 in November, and Iowa’s Abby Finkenauer, who will be 29, could also take that honor this year, but Jacobs is running in the most high-profile district, the one most likely to be flipped blue.) The district is one of the top Democratic targets in 2018, especially now that Republican Darrell Issa has announced he won’t run for reelection.

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Jacobs listens to community college students at a campaign event at Union Kitchen & Tap in Encinitas, California.

ALLISON ZAUCHA

Jacobs doesn’t try to hide the fact that she’s 29: She tells me she’s a Charlotte, likes to use the poop emoji, and is steeped in America’s Next Top Model. (When a photographer, also a woman in her twenties, encourages her to “smize,” she delivers a self-assured gaze that would make Tyra Banks proud.) She is constantly connected to her iPhone to tweet and Snapchat. (“Whose outfit is worse,” she tweeted after the Super Bowl, “Justin Timberlake or Bill Belichick?”) Perhaps the only non-millennial thing about her? She doesn’t like avocado toast. “I know. I know!” she says in apology when I look at her aghast.

“She grew up under a lot of the same circumstances that we did. A lot of the things that we faced growing up, she also did,” says Matthew DuBurg, 23, one of the students at the bar. “Issues that are important to us don't have to be translated in a way that it feels like they often have to with, not to be ageist, but candidates of a different generation.”

Jacobs puts her age — her being “a vote for our future” — front and center in her campaign. “It's our generation that's going to have to fix what Trump is breaking” is a favorite line. She’s blunt about gender, too, about how she bristles when “the patriarchy is acting up,” as it so often does. We’re in a moment, after all, where at least part of the country seems to believe that we’d be better off if old, white men didn’t have a stranglehold on Capitol Hill. But is she ready for Congress? It’s both a legitimate question asked of a first-time candidate with only brief stints in high-profile jobs and one she says would never be asked of a man. (She points out that she'd be the youngest woman ever elected — younger men have come before her.) Meanwhile, she’s dogged by the challenges that all women candidates, particularly young ones, seem to face: cracks about how she looks, tips for changing the way she speaks, unsolicited advice from people who think they know better.

“Our system is broken, and it needs to change,” Jacobs says. “And that starts by changing the face of power in this country.”

Jacobs poses for a photo at a San Diego County Young Democrats happy hour in Encinitas.

ALLISON ZAUCHA

Jacobs grew up at the southern tip of the 49th district, in Del Mar, a tony beach community where the upscale salad chains offer woven baskets for “yoga mat parking.” Her grandfather, Irwin Jacobs, co-founded Qualcomm, the hundred-billion-dollar telecommunications company, and her family are prominent Democratic donors. She studied international affairs at Columbia, getting her bachelor’s and then her master’s. She had a six-month stint at the United Nations and clocked eight months at UNICEF before landing a job working on conflict resolution and prevention as a contractor at the State Department under President Obama. She then worked as an unpaid foreign policy adviser on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

Last June, she had been running an education nonprofit, when she says EMILY’s List, the group dedicated to electing pro-choice, female candidates, approached her about running in her home district. Like many women, she was hesitant to take the plunge. Even now, two months after formally entering the race, she comes across as slightly amazed that she’s the candidate. She can sometimes sound nervous answering questions, despite undergoing “a couple hours of media training,” about which she feels conflicted. “Mostly I'm in a battle 'cause I think we should stop policing the way women speak,” she explains. “I think that a lot of what we're asking of women politicians is to speak like men, when I actually think we should be running campaigns like women.”

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Jacobs seems generally unencumbered by the idea of “how a congressperson should act.” At one point during the community college meet-and-greet at the bar, she needs to get to the other side of the table. Rather than wait for the people on the bench next to her to vacate so she can slide out, she shimmies her body below the reclaimed-wood table, ducking to pass underneath it. She springs up on the other side and smooths out her blazer. At another event, when she’s asked about how she’ll fare with the district’s large military population — especially given that one of her opponents, Doug Applegate, is a retired Marine colonel — her candor makes for an awkward moment. "It's true," she says, "I'm not a crusty old Marine." The group is mostly silent.

The thrust of her campaign is her commitment to tackling what she calls “unequal access to opportunity,” bridging the gap between the richest parts of her district and the poorest parts. To do that, she says, she’d focus on making housing, health care, and college more affordable. She has similar progressive stances to the other four Democrats in the race: universal health care, improving public schools, passing the DREAM Act.

Jacobs runs on the beach near her apartment in Encinitas.

ALLISON ZAUCHA

“I have been blessed with an incredible amount of advantages and opportunities, and I realize that that is something that is [in] a lot of ways a product of this unfair system,” Jacobs tells me over coconut-milk lattes one morning. “I believe, actually, that it's my responsibility to use those advantages and opportunities, and use the privilege that I have and the position in this unfair system, the access in that unfair system, to make the system fairer, and to make sure that everyone has access to opportunity.”

But a lot of people don’t want to talk about those systemic issues. Here is an incomplete list of the suggestions Jacobs has fielded on how to be a better candidate for Congress: Wear your hair straighter. No, add more curls. Actually, make it more “voluptuous.” Inflect the end of your sentences down, not up — upspeak doesn’t inspire confidence. Shoot some ads on the beach in your bikini to corner the male vote. Stop being so obsessed with talking about your gender. Lose the frozen, forced smile. Speak like a grown-up, not a college kid. Don’t call voters after 8 p.m. — their wives might think you’re up to no good.

Oh, and: Let me take you to dinner!

Jacobs at her campaign headquarters in Carlsbad, California.

ALLISON ZAUCHA

“We were trying to recruit a volunteer and he instead wanted to go on a date with me,” Jacobs says as we walk on the beach a few blocks from her apartment in Encinitas, California. “He was like, 'Hey, here's my number. Let's go to dinner.' And I was like, 'Okay! Why don't you stop by the office?' and he was like, 'No, no. I just want to go to dinner with you.'” (She declined.)

“Every so often it does kind of just get to you,” she says, “how much harder women have to work.”

In her campaign headquarters, housed in a sleek co-working space with kombucha on tap, she has a pink Post-it note above her desk: The patriarchy isn’t going to smash itself.

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“I find that I'm held to a much higher standard,” she says. “The men I'm running against can give a very high-level, pretty unspecific, platitude-like answer, and people are fine with it. And if I don't give a very hyper-specific [answer], exactly what part of exactly what law I would change to make this different, then I'm not prepared.”

People in her own party tell her she’s climbing too fast, that she should work her way up the ladder. “‘We think you'd make a good congressperson but it's not your turn. It's his turn,'” she says she’s been told. Why doesn’t she start with the city council, or maybe the school board? “This is not, like — there are no turns,” she says, exasperated.

When Jacobs worked on the Clinton campaign, she saw up close how much harder Clinton had to work to prove herself, how despite being one of the most qualified candidates in history, a man with no government experience beat her. She also saw how cautious Clinton had become after years in the spotlight. “Our generation, as women, is a little freer. Like, we can be more authentic in public,” she says. “I try to not let the fact that I know that people are judging me … I try not to let it make me be guarded.”

It’s well-documented that millennials crave authenticity in politics — even though that standard can be a catch-22 for women. Chyann Cox, a 23-year-old at the community college event, says that while she thinks Jacobs’s run is good for women, she prefers Applegate’s policy platform. “I definitely think she's a genuine person,” Cox says. “But connecting with her on a personal level is different from voting for her as a candidate.”

While she understands that people may question her qualifications because of her age, Jacobs says she actually has more policy and government experience than her opponents. “The only thing I don't have more experience in is growing old," she tells me.

But whether her resume, and her pitch that she’d bring a fresh perspective to Congress, will be enough to secure residents’ votes is an open question. The 49th district is ripe for the Democratic picking. Clinton won the district in 2016 by nearly 8 points, and Applegate, the military veteran and trial attorney, came within 1,621 votes of defeating Issa, the incumbent. It was the closest congressional race in the country. This time around, Applegate, who is 64, has an edge with name recognition and a goal to “finish what we started.”

Elections in California operate on a top-two system; whichever two candidates get the most votes in the June 5 primary go to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. As a result, some party operatives fear that Democrats could be shut out of the general entirely. “It is possible that if too many Democrats get into a race, they split the vote too many ways, and two Republicans end up going forward to the runoff,” says Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist in California. (With an equal number of Republicans running, the reverse is also possible.)

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There’s not yet public polling on the race, but now that Issa has taken himself out of the running, the seat leans Democrat. Jacobs has so far outraised her Democratic opponents, though her family wealth has allowed her to primarily fund her campaign herself. Of the $1.3 million she raised in her first quarter in the race, $1 million was her own money.

“I think it's important to not ask people to invest in something that you wouldn't invest in yourself,” she says. “And while I bemoan the fact that our current campaign system is based so much on fundraising and the need for the funds, when we're up against Republican candidates who are going to be funded by the Koch brothers, it's going to be very important to have a Democratic candidate who can muster the resources necessary.”

San Diego County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar, a Republican running for the seat, takes a different view. “Money can’t buy you direct ties to your community,” she says when I ask what she thinks of Jacobs’s infusing her own cash into the race. Gaspar, who’s 38, grew up with a single mom, and has made ending poverty and homelessness in the district a focus of her campaign. “You look at the number of people that are living on the streets in San Diego, you look at the families that are living out of their cars, in deep poverty. I understand how they're in this situation. I think sometimes that's the most important first step to understanding how to resolve this situation.”

Critics also say Jacobs’s family’s wealth and connections have allowed her to rise faster than she would have otherwise. According to emails released from Wikileaks, Jacobs nabbed her position on Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2015 after prodding from a major Democratic donor who happens to be a family friend. (“Well, first of all,” Jacobs says, “I think you as a fellow young person can attest that most people get jobs through connections.” Her boss at the State Department, she says, also vouched for her work.)

“Her experience level is very thin. There's just no way around it,” says South, the Democratic strategist. He notes that the experience she touts on the trail — working in Obama’s State Department, Clinton foreign policy adviser — can be better measured in months than years. “The danger she has is talking about her background in a way that starts to look deceptive, or like an exaggeration, to voters.”

Jacobs doesn’t believe she’s misrepresenting her credentials. “I think that voters are excited to see a candidate who has a different approach, who has worked in multiple different parts of the policy process and is able to take all of those different experiences in order to make sure that they're getting the best representation,” she says.

Age, Applegate tells me, isn’t what people should be focusing on. Though he makes clear he won’t take any direct shots at Jacobs, he does talk in more philosophical terms about what he considers the most important traits in a candidate: life experience and wisdom. Sometimes, he says, it’s clear that people have wisdom from their past statements and actions. Sometimes that’s harder to discern. “And sometimes,” he says, “it just doesn’t exist yet.”

On a Tuesday in late January, protesters are gathered in front of Darrell Issa’s Vista, California, office, furiously waving “Shame On You GOP” and “Blue Wave: 11.6.18” signs. A crowd of liberal demonstrators has shown up to the unassuming office park nearly every Tuesday at 10 a.m. sharp since Trump took office, voicing their disgust over him and Issa. From a makeshift podium adorned with American flags and hitched to a pick-up truck, the organizers lead chants of “Rise up!” and spar with the two counterprotesters in “Make America Great Again” hats across the street, who shout back on equally loud mics that their rivals are “mentally deranged."

Jacobs started coming to the anti-Issa rallies shortly after she announced her candidacy in November, and on this particular morning, hours before Trump will give his first State of the Union, she shows up with a cadre of campaign staffers to shake hands and schmooze with the base she needs to win over. A few people recognize her, approaching her to say hello or tell her they like her new campaign ad, in which she calls for “a new generation to change Washington.” A woman in her seventies comes up to her, leaning in close to be heard over the competing sound systems.

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“What did she say?” I ask Jacobs as the woman walks away.

The woman had recently seen Jacobs speak at an event at the Del Mar library with other Democratic candidates. “She had some comments,” Jacobs tells me carefully. “‘You were really great. You were the best. But you should speak slower.’"

Follow Rebecca on Twitter.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35898548)

At another event, when she’s asked about how she’ll fare with the district’s large military population — especially given that one of her opponents, Doug Applegate, is a retired Marine colonel — her candor makes for an awkward moment. "It's true," she says, "I'm not a crusty old Marine." The group is mostly silent.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35898553)

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35898609)

ONE OF US!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35898618)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iUEpwDrSgnY/maxresdefault.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899297)

“Every so often it does kind of just get to you,” she says, “how much harder women have to work.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899028)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5a0cfdb4/turbine/sd-1510800816-nv10vdsg6r-snap-image/1050/1050x591

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899243)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899250)

What does this mean?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899288)

The San Diego-based chipmaker announced that it would let go of approximately 1,500 employees as part of a larger cost-cutting initiative and that it plans to withdraw and refile a merger application with Chinese authorities regarding a deal with Dutch company NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI). Sources told CNBC that the chipmaker is “very concerned” with the fate of the NXP merger. On Thursday, an unnamed spokesperson for China's Commerce Ministry told Reuters that the companies would need to do more than resolve competition concerns for a deal to materialize.

The news comes amid an already rough period for chip stocks, which have seen their shares weighed on by a more volatile market that has become increasingly hostile to the tech sector. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom Ltd.'s (AVGO) $117 bid to takeover Qualcomm, indicating that the move was made on national security concerns and protected U.S. tech against mounting Chinese competition. In January, Qualcomm pledged to reduce annual costs by $1 billion to win investors' support against the hostile takeover bid.

24% Below November Highs

At a price of $52.57, QCOM stock now reflects an approximate 24% discount to its high reached in November on the announcement of the failed AVGO merger. Bears have also expressed concerns with the company's dispute with Apple Inc. (AAPL), as chipmakers fight to win contracts with the Cupertino, California-based tech giant and its South Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co. for critical cellular components.

There are some more forgiving on the Street, such as Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset Management who indicated in an interview with CNBC earlier this month that he still "loves" Qualcomm and viewed it as "the best bargain out there" before Thursday's crash. The analyst highlighted upside from a larger shift to 5G technology, the next generation of wireless tech, which he foresees spurring a rise in upgrades and boosting demand for QCOM components

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899697)

this is out of control

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35899724)

<beady eyes narrow>

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3957060&forum_id=2#35906432)