Doesn't really have the fanbase to pull off a 'diversity' message.
The Republican Party image problem in a nutshell: even the most earnest Republican attempts to cater to non-white Americans seem primarily to be directed at
making white Republicans feel better about themselves.
[Sen. Rand Paul] then went to a larger grassroots event at the Grace Bible Chapel, where there were protesters from the civil rights group National Action Network outside. The online invitation said the event was intended to "celebrate the opening of our African-American Engagement Office in Detroit."
Tracking footage from the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, however, shows an overwhelmingly white audience ended up turning out:
Well, sure. To be fair about these things, the Rand Paul fanbase is probably among the whitest of any Republican, anywhere, given that he is on the militia-esque, conspiracy-minded, cranky old-fart fringe of the party (a base inherited, like his political career, almost entirely from his father); you can't be
too surprised that the folks that would turn out to hear Rand Paul talk at them would be, well, Rand Paul fans. Still, though, the picture of a nearly-all-white Detroit audience congratulating themselves for the formation of a new office for talking to the black folks is just ... well ... there's really no possible good outcome to that, is there? The problem with the various recent Republican outreach efforts is that their various banner-waving launches tend mostly to highlight just how desperately that outreach is needed, but the actual
outreach part never quite manages to materialize once the banners have been taken down and shipped off to the next town. It takes no great cynic to wonder if the obvious lack of earnestness behind the efforts is still, at this late date, doing more to harm the party than to soften it.
As obvious example: immigration reform. Immigration reform was embraced by demographic-watching party elders as a fine way to show that the party was not, in fact, openly hostile to immigrants. This backfired spectacularly when the various Steve Kings of the party, in office and not, belligerently told the party that they would be nice to melon-calved immigrants approximately when hell froze over, thank you very much, upon which the whole notion of being nice to immigrants curled up and died a humiliated death.
The GOP is still at the stage where outreach to any and all groups that are not conservative white men consist mostly of the conservative white men meeting among themselves to tell each other that they are now inclusive and diverse and whatnot. It may, in the end, be the best they can do; it's a bit difficult to shepherd a massive new wave of minority vote-blocking efforts through each of the Republican-led states while simultaneously promising non-white Americans that, pinky swear this time, the Republicans have finally learned to respect and listen to them.