Good luck with that.
California Representative Kevin McCarthy, the chief recruiter for House Republicans, said he wants his party to select candidates based less on ideology and more on their chances of winning. The goal, he said, is to seek out prospects who are ethnically diverse, female, less partisan and even supportive of abortion rights. So far, these efforts are more concept than reality.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!
Yeah, "more concept than reality", because anytime you put up a more electable Republican, their crazy base and their allies in talk radio, Fox News, and the Club for Growth make sure to sabotage. They've just landed their single most electable candidate for any office in Charlie Crist in Florida, yet their crazy base is rallying around Mario Rubio.
And remember Republican Jim Tedisco in right-leaning NY-20? He lost, in huge part, because of his inability to stray from his party's self-destructive orthodoxy on Obama's stimulus bill. Republicans aren't about to become more tolerant of orthodoxy-busting candidates.
Remember when we were in the minority, the netroots rallied around conservative Dems like Stephanie Herseth and Ben Chandler, Jon Tester and Jim Webb. Thankfully for Democrats, Republicans are incapable of such ideological tolerance.
As for more diverse candidates? In both chambers of Congress, Republicans are down to a single Jewish member, four Cuban-Americans (no non-Cuban Latinos), no African Americans, one Asian (who is a guaranteed loss in 2010), and just 21 women out of 218 total seats, or less than 10 percent. (While not great, Dems are significantly better with 70 women in the 313-strong caucus, or 22%.)
Update: Along these lines, Dave Weigel has a great piece on the intolerant conservative grassroots:
DeVore, who attended a Tea Party in Modesto, contrasted his record with Fiorina’s tacit support of the economic stimulus and the national party’s belief that self-funding, “inexperienced, dilletente politican wannabees” could save the party in California. “That’s the path of least resistance and it leads to defeat,” said DeVore. “Even if they win some seats, they will wind wind up with principle-less individuals who perpetuate themselves in power. We saw what happened with that in 2006 and 2008. If we want the GOP to succeed in the future we need to get back to what makes us different than the Democrats.”
As the NRSC continues to push for more moderate candidates, conservatives like Rubio, Toomey and DeVore have allies in high places. “It is always a problem when Republicans are not faithful to conservative views,” said James Bopp, Jr., the Indiana RNC committeeman who is pushing for the party to pass a resolution asking the Democrats to rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party. “When that happens, people become confused about the differences between Republicans and Democrats, and that is a prescription for Dem success.”
The message is literally, "if you didn't attend a tea party, no need to apply".