The GOP’s “big tent” thinking is alive and well.
On Wednesday, the Republican State Leadership Committee launched the Future Majority Caucus to support women, blacks or Americans of Hispanic and Asian descent running for office on the state level. The mission statement: The new caucus will expand the scope of recruitment and support for candidates “to more closely reflect the diversity of our nation.”
Running it all: that would be Ed Gillespie, who has returned to chair the committee itself after a year as senior advisor with Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He has a full plate. Along with the new caucus, Mr. Gillespie will also lead the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Republican Lieutenant Governors Association, the Republican Secretaries of State Association and the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee.
Mr. Gillespie has long championed the idea of upping the GOP’s appeal to minority voters, and is intent on “growing the party,” he says, with good policies for working families and job creation. He’s got help.
The newly formed caucus, which also focuses on voter outreach in English and Spanish, will be led by Governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada who say they seek “a new generation of Republican leaders.”
The caucus, incidentally, is part of determined but complicated Republican push into traditional Democratic demographics. Two years ago, Mr. Gillespie himself founded the Future Majority Project as “a forward-thinking outreach initiative to the Hispanic community intended to proactively grow the Republican family.”
Also in that mix: Right Women, Right Now, an effort support Republican women candidates at the state level.
And the money? In 2012, the committee contributed $5 million to support Hispanic and women candidates.
