As chairwoman of the San Francisco Republican Party, attorney Harmeet Dhillon possesses an unusual background for a GOP leader. The Indian American is a past board member of the American Civil Liberties Union and doesn’t focus on the divisive social issues that have alienated the GOP from Californians.

But now that Dhillon is running to be vice chair of the California Republican Party - she would be the first female of color in the job - one of the state’s top conservative groups is ripping her for being a little too San Francisco, warning that Dhillon is a Bay Area liberal who “simply doesn’t represent our values.”

GOP registration is at an all-time low; the fast-growing Latino and Asian voter blocs shunned GOP candidates in the November election; no statewide elected office is held by a Republican, and the party is struggling to shed roughly $500,000 of debt.

“This is not a personal attack against Harmeet,” Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, said Tuesday. “The ACLU is a communist organization.

“Do we want somebody who is a member of a communist organization that has sued religious organizations numerous times because they don’t like the cross and the Menorah” displayed on public property, Greig said, in explaining why she considers the ACLU - which has no official political affiliation - to be communist.

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