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San Francisco Young Republican Chair, Ed Sheppard, recently endorsed John Dennis.  Yesterday, Mr. Sheppard wrote the following for Red County:

With absentee ballots out, and the primary close approaching, I feel it appropiate to explain why I will be voting the way I plan. For those who are not following the extremely high profile San Francisco Central Committee race (if you had a sarcasm detector, it should have blown up right then), I have set up a free website, which includes a page on how I will be voting. But there are certain votes that I feel need some deeper analysis. So let's dive in, and see why I am voting for John Dennis, instead of Dana Walsh, to run against Nancy Pelosi.

Congressional District 8 Primary: John Dennis

Every race is different. The ultimate goal of any campaign is to win in November. CD-8 is entirely in San Francisco, so while a victory in November would be great, It cannot be the only goal. Here in San Francisco, Republicans make up 10% of registered voters. The goal of any campaign in San Francisco needs to be increasing that number. In San Francisco, in 2008, the best a Republican candidate did in ANY San Francisco race was 17%, and those were both State Assembly races. John McCain got 13%. Dana Walsh, running against Pelosi, got 9.5%, or Republican registration in the district. So in order for victory in November to be acheived, a candidate really needs to go out there and find a whole lotta votes. Additionally, the CD-8 candidate automatically becomes part of the SFGOP. The SFGOP needs to increase Republican registration in San Francisco in order to have a greater voice in city politics. During the election cycle, theCD-8 candidate needs to take the lead in increasing Republican numbers in the city.

And finding votes for Republicans in San Francisco is doable. Are there enough to go from 17% to 50% plus 1 in two years? Its a long shot, but the fact that I can convince women to go out on dates with me is proof that anything is possible. But even if we go from 17% to 25% or 30%, that is a great step forward. And it is possible. I have seen it firsthand. But you need a candidate who is willing to go out and work hard for those votes.

I managed Harmeet K. Dhillon's State Assembly campaign in the 13th District. The odds were stacked against Dhillon. The 13th Assembly District (all of which is in the 8th Congressional District) is the more liberal half of San Francisco, with barely 8% Republican registration. In 2006 and 2004, the Republican candidates never broke 13%. But our campaign was aggressive. With only $100,000, 3 full time volunteers, and 5 people who phone banked, in the year Obama ran, Dhillon reversed the declining trend for San Francisco Republicans, doing better than any candidate in the district since 1994 with 17% of the vote. Why did Dhillon do so well with so few resources? The attitiude to go out, meet voters and get their votes. And the result was her numbers going up when conventional wisdom says they should have gone down. And for those who were not part of the group of 8 people who volunteered, John Dennis was one of the 5 people who made calls, so he also saw first hand that votes were available in San Francisco if a candidate was willing to work for them.

Dennis promised to campaign aggressively, and he has followed up on that promise. Dennis has raised over $500,000, and more importantly has over $200,000 of cash on hand. Last weekend, he had over 100 volunteers knocking on doors and making calls for him. During the primary, he has registered over 250 new Republicans, which for San Francisco is a lot (we have under 41,000 in the city). He speaks at San Francisco Republican events, and more importantly, stays for the entire event and speaks with every person who attends. He organizes frequent meet-ups with Republicans in the city, and reaches out to people of all parties who are new to the political process. His volunteers have been knocking on doors and making calls for months, reaching out to Republicans in San Francisco. I know all this because I receive notices and invites via email and Facebook whenever he has one. I have seen advertisements for Dennis on Facebook and Internet sites, has started radio advertising and has a strong media presence. His website is very tech savvy, and is the number one rated candidate site in the country. And this is just the primary. He is already polling at 22% against Pelosi. Dennis has both the organization, the resources and the drive to make an unprecedented run in November, and introduce new voters to the Republican Party.

Dana Walsh has raised $1.4 million, but only has about $120,000 in cash on hand. But her campaign does not represent one that has spent $1.3 million. Like  Dennis, I am on her email list and follow her on social media. I do not get nearly the amount of notices and invites to events as I get from Dennis. Walsh attends Republican events in the city, but arrives late and leaves early. I have not seen any Internet ads for Walsh, but I know she is advertising on the radio. Her websites (she has two) are tech savvy, but she lags behind Dennis in terms of web traffic and social media presence. I do not know of any phonebanking or precinct walking that her campaign has done. From what I have seen of her organization, I believe that she has, in 2010, built the same organization she did in her 2008 run. And that organization raised more money than Pelosi's previous competitors combined, and did they worst of any of them.

But you just don't vote for someone just because you think they can win at the expense of your beliefs (when you do that, you get Democratic Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger). I agree with John Dennis on a lot of issues, as I do with Dana Walsh. In fact, I'm probably a little closer to Walsh on the political spectrum than I am to John Dennis. Both represent strong Republican views. The few issues on which they differ, mainly foreign policy issues, are controversial ones, however. Upon close examination of Dennis's views, however, I find that simply not to be the case.

One example is Dennis's view on foreign military bases. He believes them to be unconstitutional, and wants the US to conduct a survey/audit of the 700 foreign bases we have to determine if we need each one/continue to subsidize other nations self defense, and eliminate the ones that do make make the cut. I was against this when I first heard this. However, Dennis accurately cited that fact the US did a cost/benefit analysis of domestic military bases, and with over 700 other bases outside the US, there are probably bases that are not needed. He cited military bases in Japan, created to eliminate the need for a post-WWII Japan from building up its military, which may not be needed anymore, but no one has bothered to see if we do. Assessing only what is needed and Constitutional is not left to Pelosi, but rather very Republican. So I feel very good about Dennis's Republican's street cred.

Additionally, Dennis's ability to clearly articulate his positions won me over. As I stated, my views are somewhere between Dennis and Walsh, and probably closer to Walsh. Yet I feel Walsh does have a problem clearly articulating her views when she is forced stray from talking points. When she strays from talking points, I feel she betrays the fact that she does not have an indepth understanding of the issues. Which means if I disagree with her on something, and try to discuss it with her, it would go no where fast because she doesn't know the issue well enough. With Dennis, on the other hand, I can at least have the discussion if I disagree with him.

And so, John Dennis gets my vote.

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