Posted on 04/26/2011 10:29:32 AM PDT by SmithL
Harmeet Dhillon has the loneliest job in politics: chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco, a very liberal city that former California GOP leader Ron Nehring described as "just to the left" of the capital of communist North Korea.
Dhillon, a tall, dark-haired attorney, has long been comfortable being the loud voice at the front of unpopular battles. Smart, blunt and outspoken, she is determined to make the GOP brand, which has been moribund in San Francisco for decades, relevant in the city and statewide.
She's a different kind of Republican. Harping on social issues, she said, isn't the way forward.
"Bottom line: It's a political party. It's not a philosophy, it's not a way of life, it's not a religion. It's about winning," Dhillon, 42, said in the direct, prosecutorial tone that dominates her conversations. "I'd like to see our party win."
The daughter of conservative Sikhs, she was born in India and raised in a rural North Carolina town, where a sign at the city limits encouraged passers-by to "Join the Support" of the Ku Klux Klan. Her parents threw fundraisers for conservative GOP Sen. Jesse Helms.
She later served on the board of the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and as an attorney defended employees at left-leaning Berkeley radio station KPFA - organizations that few Republicans would go near. In February, she married a retired nuclear engineer and former board member of the station who receives a union pension.
While the GOP's fiscal conservatism often resonates with voters, Dhillon said, "our message is clouded by a bunch of other issues that are either controversial or not supported by the majority of voters. I think we shoot ourselves in the foot a lot."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
She has no interest in challenging the Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling, believes government shouldn't be in the marriage business and that same-sex couples should receive the same tax benefits as straight ones. She wants undocumented immigrants to get a pathway to citizenship. The war in Libya, she says, is unconstitutional.She's proof that being Republican is not the same as Conservative. But then, she's in a city where Gavin "Any Twosome" Newsom was called a Republican by another candidate for mayor.
When you compromise with evil, the result is evil.
Many of the social issues she is disinterested in are winning issues, anyway. Most American oppose most abortion. They opppose taxpayer funding of abortion. They oppose the legalization of drugs. They oppose homo marriage. Even in California.
If she wants to just be a fiscal conservative, she should lead the Libertarians.
Once you surrender everything that matters in order to “win”, what exactly are you going to “win”??
Opposing something, and supporting government using their heavy hand to clamp down on it, are two different things.
“Opposing something, and supporting government using their heavy hand to clamp down on it, are two different things.”
Disagree, I oppose murder, and I think the government’s heavy hand should punish it (with the death penalty).
I oppose the legal redefinition of the covenant of marriage, and its many implications, and I think the heavy hand of government should not recognize any alterations.
I oppose being subject to the insanity of drug addicts, and their extreme anti-social behavior, and I think the heavy hand of government should remove same from sane society.
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