Another election campaign and another marginal fringe candidate.

Allow your intrepid blogger to point out the obvious, if you have no self awareness, you have no regret.

Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite 2026 candidates, Darin Hale. He is another of a long list of candidates one could point to as evidence of what NOT to do in a campaign! In fact, if you did a lot of things opposite of Hale you’d be on your way to legitimacy as a candidate.

From a review of easy-to-find stuff on the internet, it is clear that Hale is impulsive, undisciplined, and angry. He takes to Social media to vent his spleen repeatedly and it appears that the focus of everything that bothers him is now one Heather Hadwick. I think Heather’s only offense is that she is in the way of Hail’s next attempt to make himself feel relevant and important.

Witness this easy-to-find article that got national news attention.

On Jan. 21, IASCO Flight Training — a flight school based out of Redding Regional Airport — posted a photo on Facebook of several cadets who are part of the Hong Kong International Aviation Academy and completed their flight training at the Redding school. Darin Hale, who has been on the Anderson council for about a year, commented on the post using the same photo of the cadets, which had been altered by overlaying the words, “China’s Peoples Liberation Army / Redding CA,” with downward facing arrows pointing at each cadet.

If you look at Hail’s social media profile you are stuck by the stereotype of a trench digging, prepper that should be in the wilderness of Montana. This is not the kind of image the Republican Party wants to reinforce as it will have an effect on all Republicans. It is even worse as the scourge of Jew-Hate has now gone mainstream and many Republican leaders have chosen to ignore it and hope it will go away.

Hale replied, denying the school’s use of the term “propaganda,” broadly claiming without evidence that Chinese students in America gather information and report it back to the Chinese military and accusing the flight school of putting “American lives at risk.”

Hale shared a video of a Newsmax story from last May about Chinese students allegedly spying on American universities, a claim that was made last year by two student journalists at Stanford. He didn’t provide any proof linking students at the Redding-based flight school with espionage, simply referencing their perceived nationality instead. The school stated in the comments that the students pictured aren’t even from China.

You will see from just these snippets that not only does Hale type irrational and irresponsible stuff in the early-late evening, but when called on it argues every point in order to prove how right he is… even when caught with an indefensible position. Imagine this guy in Sacramento trying to get a bill passed. He’d be the only person that is right and everyone else around would be wrong, then everyone would get it but him.

Since Hale’s initial comment on the school’s Facebook post, he has made several posts on his own page that accuse the flight school of being owned by China and training Chinese students who will become pilots for China’s military. He’s also made claims on Facebook about how Chinese students in America gain intelligence on infrastructure and other information and report it back to the Chinese government.

Hale denied a request to comment for this story.

And when challenged, Hale was too much of a coward to even talk to a local media outlet. He might want to shave off his beard and turn in his man card too.

On March 9, Darin Hale’s actions caused the following:

City staff brought the drafted policy to the council on March 3, where it passed 4-1, with council member Darin Hale casting the dissenting vote. The policy was created in the wake of controversial posts made by Hale on his personal Facebook page, where he accused a local flight school of participating in Chinese espionage without proof. After the accusations, an official with the school reached out to the city asking leaders to adopt a policy related to statements by public officials.

Undaunted, Hail has continued his Happy Hour rampage:

In between militia posts, Hale is seeing a commie under every rock, too. (Or perhaps whatever is in his system at the time he makes posts like these is telling him that…)

Welcome to Shasta County 2026 where a crazed small-town councilmember is making national news in the wrong way and thinks it will net him a seat in the California State Legislature.