Based on a ton of emails that I have received since my post yesterday afternoon on the California Republican Party hiring Patrick Dorenson to be its new Communications Director, I felt like I needed to follow up with a note.

You see, I thought it was incredibly newsworthy that the CRP has hired a prominent former Democrat political operative to head up their Communications effort.  I first heard about this hire from reading about it in Capitol Weekly, who also thought that Dorenson’s past work for the campaigns of Al Gore and Bill Clinton were worthy of note, leading with that in their story.

The reason for this note is that many are assuming that because I pointed out this ‘unique’ (to say the least) background for Dorenson, that this means that I am unhappy or displeased with his being hired.  That is not the case at all.  As a matter of fact, I went out of my way, in my post, to say:  "I look forward to finding out more about Mr. Dorenson.  His background is a bit startling, to say the least.  I know Chairman Duf Sundheim, COO Mike Vallante and outgoing Communications Director Karen Hanretty well enough to wait to hear from them about this new hire before doing anything other than sharing a this initial "intel" – we’ll bring you more when I have it."

Right after I made that post, I did hear back from Karen, to whom I had placed a call.  Karen was quite emphatic in her support of Dorenson, saying that he would really be great in the role.  Karen forwarded along to me her own testimonial on Dorenson, which I immediately posted for FR readers.

I’ll be chatting with Dorenson today, and I am looking forward to it.  If someone is genuine in the path they took to becoming a Republican (Dorenson makes a good case right here), then I welcome them eagerly.

Ronald Reagan, Bill Dannemeyer, Jim Rogan (all pictured), and many others are among those who started out as Democrats and eventually joined the Grand Old Party.

All of that said, I suspect that I will be judging Dorenson with a high degree of scrutiny.  But I will say that knowing Chairman Duf Sundheim, whom I hold in high regard, he would have put a lot of thought into the candidate he chose to fill this particular spot.  I’ve served as Executive Director of the State Republican Party, and I plan on giving the benefit of the doubt to our Chairman, as I speak with Dorenson. 

That said, my original point still stands — Dorenson’s background is newsworthy and noteworthy.

Welcome to the CRP, Patrick!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.