Tuesday Nights at 8:30
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Joshua Sharf Elected Denver County Vice Chairman
Saturday, February 7, 2009
I am pleased to announce that I have been elected 2nd Vice Chairman of the Denver Republican Party. The party has created three Vice Chairmanships, with the intent of increasing both participation and representation of our diverse viewpoints.
I was elected as part of a slate, including Ryan Call as Chairman, Toby Hurd as 1st Vice Chairman, Sam Freeman as 3rd Vice Chairman, and Kelly Maher as Secretary. I am eager to be a part of rebuilding our party in Denver and across the state. What follows is our agenda for doing so.
Our job is to help elect Republicans. It is not to dictate the ideology or the platform of the party to the membership or the candidates. It is to provide a forum for party members to debate and decide issues of platform and policy. It is to help develop candidates, and to provide the tools for those candidates.
That means:
- Visibility: Lists of neighborhood and community organizations, along with meeting schedules.
- Money: Denver will always be on its own, but we can improve our internal fundraising.
- Direction: Directing interested activists to like-minded grass-roots groups, encouraging their growth.
- Guidance: Replicating the national Party's book on campaign structure and deadlines, allowing for what is now Election Month, rather than Election Day.
- Support: Connecting candidates with current legislators to help them connect with their electorate.
- Messaging: Letting Denverites know that our ideas deliver the goods that liberals say they want to.
- Technology: Using current social networking and alternative media tools, and identifying news ones.
- Build a Farm Team: Encourage candidates to run for local, non-partisan offices and serve on boards and commissions.
- Diversity: Reach out to a voter base of many ethnicities, and multiple ideologies.
All of this means hard work by the Executive Committee. It means a presence at every monthly District meeting, constant communication, and direct communication with precinct officers, candidates, and office-holders. It means planning, But it's the only way we'll be able to rebuild our party here in Denver. We look forward to being a part of that, and we hope that the party will see fit to grant us that responsibility.
Please click here for a calendar of local Republican events, and events that we believe help further the conservative & libertarian cause. If these aren't official Republican events, they're not officially sanctioned by the Republican Party. But go anyway, have a good time, meet people, maybe learn something, and find out how you can help us change back. |
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The Campaign Ends
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
And so, the long campaign comes to an end. I would like to congratulate my opponent on her victory, and on a race well-run. We each ran campaigns focused on politics rather than personalities, and the district will be better served by it. I wish her well in the legislature, and encourage her to endeavor to represent all the residents of the district, as I'm sure she will.
Along the way, I believe we have accomplished much. Even in losing, we have attracted more votes than any Republican in District 6 in the last 12 years, and a higher percentage of the vote than any Republican in 8 years. That turnout helped defeat and pass numerous ballot initiatives. We succeeded in stopping Amendment 59 and Referendum O, and succeeded in passing Amendment 54. As I write, the fate of Amendment 46 is as yet undecided. Should it pass, our efforts here will have helped to provide the margin of victory.
A candidate is like the astronaut on the tip of the rocket: without all the engineers, he just sits there. I want to personally thank all the volunteers who have helped, from the beginning when we were petitioning onto the ballot, on through the primaries and the general election. This includes all those who walked precincts, made phone calls, gathered signatures, hosted yard signs, and those who did the hardest thing of all: voluntarily part with their hard-earned money in support of our efforts.
I particularly want to thank Ruth Prendergast, my campaign manager, without whom this whole campaign would have fallen apart before we got fairly started; Mark Makowitz, my treasurer and general counsel, who mastered and handled myriad technical details about campaign finance and did the disinctly unglamorous work of keeping us in compliance and out of trouble; Susie Ehrenfeld who ran our electronic media campaign; Wendy Warner, my strategist, who made sure we were walking the right precincts, and who has begun the task of whipping District 6 back into fighting shape as its District Captain; Karen Kataline, who was there at the very beginning, and whose herculean efforts helped launch this effort from - literally - nothing.
While many walked and gathered signatures and made phone calls, I'd like to single out a few who went above and beyond: Denise Myrup, Joe Defez, Darrin Levy, and Jenny and Loyd Pearcy, who collected dozens (in some cases over one hundred) signatures; Tom Aanerud, who not only handled our signs but also walked a number of precincts not even his own; Phyllis Hirschfeld for collecting dozens of signatures and walking both her precinct and others; Jim Johnston, David Brittain, Dmitry Vilner, Jeff Krump, Scott Vickrey, Bill Skewes, Susan Kikoen, Chris Barnes, Rosina Kovar, Judy Krall, and Mark Robertson, for walking theirs and others' precincts with me in search of votes.
We thank Neil & Leah Dobro, Bob Buckland, Amanda Mountjoy, Mary Meade, Donna & Jim Johnston, Jenny & Loyd Pearcy, and Drs. Rachel and Nathan Rabinovitch for opening their homes to help us in the quest for that most criticial in any campaign - money to get our message out.
And I want to thank Hank Brown, Bob Schaffer, John Andrews, Kent Lambert, Mark Hillman, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Rosen, Richard Allen and Zuhdi Jasser. When the integrity of our great party was threatened, they stepped up and lent their names and their reputations to an untried, untested candidate for both the primary and general elections.
Now, while we all will take a breather for a moment from electoral politics, we must also remember, and never forget, the ideas that this campaign was really about: freedom, liberty, trust of our fellow citizens, and their offspring: dignity, opportunity, and hope. While our party has suffered some losses last night, we must remain true to those eternal principles. We must and will continue to carry that message into the public square, so that in the fullness of time, we can see them, our birthright as Americans, once again fully embraced by the people of Colorado and the United States.
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