When she’s introducing herself to potential supporters, Denise Gitsham sometimes brings up her heritage: she’s the daughter of a Chinese mother who immigrated from Taiwan and a father from Canada who served a full career in the United States Air Force.

She mentioned it when she announced her candidacy for the House of Representatives in November as her parents stood by her side, and again on Thursday evening during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, an event for and Republican lawmakers, candidates and right-leaning causes.

But when Gitsham’s background wasn’t entirely obvious the uncertainty has worked to her political advantage. It helped her get work during George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign for president, she said.

“I’m just ambiguously ethnic enough to pass for almost anything, and as a result ended up as a Hispanic coalitions coordinator,” she said in a speech Wednesday at C-PAC.

“One of my responsibilities was figuring out how to speak to Latino voters in a way that resonated with them, and help them realize without party affiliations or labels, they were in fact conservatives,” added Gitsham, who is running to unseat Democratic incumbent Scott Peters . “The results confirmed what we already knew, that Hispanics are in fact fiscal and social conservatives, they just hadn’t realized it yet.”

Jason Roe, Gitsham’s campaign manager, said his candidate didn’t try to pass as Hispanic, and she’s just continuing a long-running joke.

“She’s making fun of herself and I think this characterization takes it way too seriously. She is no way was portraying herself as Hispanic, just joking about how she found herself doing Hispanic outreach,” he said, adding that she’s been using the joke for at least three years.

Gitsham speech

Thursday wasn’t the first time Gitsham discussed how she portrayed her heritage to work for the Bush campaign.

“As a half-Chinese 22 year old without a Latino bone in my body, I created a position for myself on the Bush campaign, running President Bush’s previously non-existent National Hispanic Coalition. I figured the President would benefit from speaking directly to the Hispanic population about his vision for America” she wrote on her profile for Disruptive Thinkers, a forum for young entrepreneurs.

Gitsham is fluent in Mandarin, and said she regularly visited China, but she does not speak Portuguese or Spanish, the two major languages in Latin America.

What Gitsham did for Bush’s 2000 campaign isn’t clear as she and her campaign has given conflicting accounts. Gitsham, on her company’s website, said she “developed and managed a national Latino communications and outreach plan that spanned 28 states, and resulted in the highest percentage of Latino votes for a Republican candidate in the history of US presidential elections.”

Roe said she was an unpaid intern, but Gitsham later gave a different account about her compensation. Gitsham’s LinkedIn account only includes her paid work and her profile on the business networking site lists a 17-month tenure with the Bush campaign.

“When I speak to my Asian constituents, I feel a natural kinship based on our shared cultural heritage, but I also recognize their hopes and dreams as being similar to every other American’s,” she said at C-PAC.

Like other voters, they want a level playing field, lower taxes, opportunities to succeed, and the end of burdensome regulation, she said.

“My district will ultimately be won or lost based on the swing-Asian vote,” Gitsham said.

Census Bureau data show Asian Americans account for 19.2 percent of the 52nd Congressional District’s population, while 14.5 percent are Hispanic.

Gitsham’s comments come as the GOP continues to struggle win support from minority voters. A study from the Pew Research Center from last April shows that 80 percent of blacks, 65 percent of Asians and 56 percent of Hispanics nationally identified as Democrats.

Gitsham’s Republican and Democratic opponents questioned her judgment and character.

"This demonstrates an incredible lack of integrity and honesty, what's worse is that she is clearly so comfortable with the duplicity she uses it in campaign speeches as a badge of honor,” Jacquie Atkinson, a Republican, said in a statement. “The voters of the 52nd don't need another politics as usual Washington insider. They deserve better representation than that."

Gitsham’s approach won’t resonate with voters, said John Horst, another Republican candidate.

“We will need a candidate who is authentic and can compete with Scott Peters for every single vote in the district. Comments like this only serve to strengthen my conviction that I am that candidate,” he said in a statement.

The campaign for Democrat Peters said Gitsham’s comments were strange.

“That she launched her political career pretending to be someone she's not is an odd thing to trumpet, but more significantly, she told one of the most anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, pro-gun lobby, tea party groups in America that she's 'one of them,'" MaryAnne Pintar, a spokesman for incumbent Democrat Scott Peter’s campaign said.

Pintar is referring to a line from Gitsham’s speech where the candidate said that despite left-leaning experience working in renewable energy, the daughter of immigrants, and degrees from liberal colleges and universities, she’s a bonafide conservative.

“Let me put your hearts at ease, I’m one of you,” Gitsham said.

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1841