As Republicans seek growth, a difficult fork in the road ahead
Democrats have their problems: a lame-duck president whose popularity has slumped, just about zero chance of winning back the House, and a better-than-fair shot at losing the Senate as well. But Republicans were facing multiple sources of tension, in California and nationally, as they met this weekend at the state GOP’s convention in Los Angeles.
There was the overall split in the party between the strategies that have won success in midterm elections — satisfying the older, whiter, more religious party base — against the angles that the party must play to win presidential contests: to wit, broadening its reach to younger, more female and fewer white voters.
Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who is readying a presidential run, made a stab Saturday at trying to push the party in the latter direction. But when it came to specifics, he underscored contradictions in his argument that Democrats will be able to exploit were he, or anyone following his prescriptions for victory, to win the GOP nomination.
In keeping with current GOP strategy, Paul did not so much as utter a word about the party’s views on such combative issues as immigration reform or abortion rights, two threshold issues that have caused great numbers of Latinos, Asians and women to refuse to give a second glance to the party’s candidates. (Nor, in an evening speech, did House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from Bakersfield.)
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-republicans-future-demographic-challenge-20140921-story.html
Pretty much stating what's been obvious for years now, but nice to read about the GOP's struggle to be both an inclusive and exclusive political party.
