Karl Rove on the GOP: select more diverse candidates, avoid those that are too offensive
Options
Young_Chitlin
Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
By ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
GOP strategist Karl Rove said Saturday that rebuilding the Republican brand in California will be a tough task that will require them to diversify and create a strategy to spread their message to a wider audience. Referring to the state party's deep losses in recent years, Rove said it needs to focus on larger themes of restoring jobs and reducing government spending.
He also said the party must recruit candidates who reflect the diversity of the country, and in particular, California. By next year, Hispanics will overtake whites as the state's largest demographic group. 'We need to be asking for votes in the most powerful way possible, which is to have people asking for the vote who are comfortable and look like and sound like the people that we're asking for the vote from,' Rove said.
His message to delegates, activists and local party officials throughout California was in line with the philosophy behind his new political action committee, the Conservative Victory Project. The committee was established to support Republican candidates it deems electable, offsetting GOP candidates who might offend key parts of the electorate.
Rove told activists at the Republican Party's spring convention in Sacramento that rebuilding would be 'a big task,' but noted Texas as an example. Once a Democratic stronghold, the state elected Republicans to 95 of 150 state House seats in November. Democrats have not won a statewide office in Texas since 1994.
Republicans hold the opposite status in California, where Democrats won supermajorities in the Legislature last fall and hold every statewide office. The GOP accounts for less than 30 percent of the state's voters and has been losing favor with Latinos, women and younger voters.
Rove said rebuilding the California Republican Party might be so tough that party activists might choose to continue on their current path, 'or you can get up off of the mat and throw yourself back into this contest.' 'Think smart, be active, be committed, rebuild the organization, ask for the vote in the right way, and speak boldly and proudly about our universal principles in a way that attracts support of your fellow Californians,' he said.
Rove appeared at the convention as a favor to former state Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte, a longtime friend who was expected to be elected as the state party's new chairman on Sunday. His suggestions on expanding the types of candidates being fielded struck a chord with Tyson Greaves, a 63-year-old party member from San Jose who said pushing for diversity within the party is crucial. 'It's pretty clear to me that you don't have authenticity or credibility in a community if you show up only in an election cycle,' he said.
Comments
-
they think Latinos are gonna vote just because the candidate happens to be Latino?
-
[Rant]Damn how many ? PACs do these people have? There's a PAC for every damn thing! [/Rant]
Hell must be cold as hell if Rove is talking like this, it aint frozen yet...because the GOP still needs to learn the difference between Cubans, Puerto Ricans & Mexicans. Just because they are brown skinned and speak Spanish that doesn't mean Latinos can relate. -
They do need younger,ethnic,urbane and more moderate people in general as well..more women.
They basically went from Bush Sr and Bob Dole moderate to center right types to ? Sara Palin.Even real moderates like McCain bent over backwards for the south when if he would have done him he might have done better.. -
The need to tell the conservatives to chill and they gotta understand that minorites and the youth have been mobilized for an entire generation.They need a moderate message and moderate leaders.
-
@.
It just baffles me how this party is trying desperately to hold on to their olds ways. It's beyond sad. The country is moving forward, along with a changing demographic. Yet this idiot is STILL in denial ever since the election. Now he thinks that if you send the Latino republicans to carry their message to their Latino peers, then OH, they'll follow b/c, well they "look alike".
Yes. This what most of these white politicians think like. These are the kinds of people who are in Washington. Smh -
isn't he arguing that the Republican philosophies should be pitched to include the maximum amount of people due to those changing demographics?darkone360 wrote: »The country is moving forward, along with a changing demographic. Yet this idiot is STILL in denial ever since the election.
-
They are ALOT of latino republicans,man.It's sad..
-
The new ones barley speak english and aren't citizens..it's crazy..Colombians,Mexicans are of course Cubans.
