SAN FRANCISCO — The Republican National Committee chairman showed up Thursday in one of the nation’s least GOP-friendly cities, expressing confidence that his party was in strong position to win a U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s office in November.
"You’ve already begun to see here in California an enormous and I think important groundswell of support for Meg and Carly and a host of folks out there who are running,” Michael Steele said, referring to Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — the Republican nominees for governor and Senate, respectively. "We are competitive in California for the first time in a long time and as national chairman my intention is to win California big.”
Neither candidate was on hand to hear Steele address the 60-person gathering of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce for a speech that focused mainly on the recession and small business.
Several Republican attendees at Steele’s speech are running for solid-blue San Francisco seats in Congress and the state Legislature, hoping to ride a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment into office. Steele spoke with several of them individually, and said they could count on his support.
"What I got out of this is the motivation to know that as a Republican here in San Francisco that we can do good things,” said Alfonso Faustino, a Republican candidate for state Assembly who is facing an incumbent Democrat who won with 83 percent of the vote in 2008. "It gives me more strength to carry on with my campaign.”
Recommended for you
Steele was scheduled to meet with California donors for the next couple of days.
Countering Steele, California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton said there’s no evidence of any Republican trend in the state that could work against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, who is Whitman’s opponent, or Sen. Barbara Boxer, the incumbent whom Fiorina wishes to unseat.
"He’s out of touch with reality in the state,” Burton said of the RNC chairman.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.