Mediaboss Marketing

This self-regarding city loves its celebrities, be they dandified politician, techie billionaire or quirky sports hero.

John Dennis is none of those things.

Not a single head turns as he enters one of his regular lunch spots, passing the long mahogany bar and striding down a row of tables before settling into a seat near the corner.

His labors may qualify as one of the most futile exercises in all of American politics, an effort akin to shooting a bottle rocket at the moon: Three times Dennis, a libertarian-minded Republican, has run against Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Three times he has fallen epically short.

Pelosi, the Democratic House leader, is not just one of the most powerful and prominent women in the nation. She represents a vociferously liberal city, where Republicans are a blink-and-you-miss-them 8% of registered voters. On Nov. 4, she was reelected for the 14th time with 83% support.

Still, Dennis suggests, a struggling party needs to start somewhere.

"This town is an echo chamber, like a super-red town would be," he says, "and it's really important to break down the stereotype of what people think so you can have a more interesting discussion of what's going on."

Dennis is hardly your standard-issue Republican.

He differs with social conservatives on same-sex marriage, believing such wedlock is none of the federal government's business, and also on legalized abortion, saying he is "not comfortable using the force of the state" to outlaw the procedure.

He breaks with the chest-thumpers in the GOP who offer American exceptionalism as a rationale for an expansive and assertive foreign policy. Having lived abroad, Dennis says, he has seen the way people resent the United States; for him, a catalyzing political moment came during a 2007 Republican presidential debate when former Texas Rep. Ron Paul characterized the 9/11 attacks as "blowback" for America's role in the Middle East.

See the article here:
3-time Pelosi opponent not your typical Republican