Suddenly, the historically monochrome Republican Party is flashing a few glints of color.
For a generation, the Republican Party's demographic problem has been summed up in three adjectives: too old, too white, too male.
That’s why GOP officials are thrilled by the prospect of a South Carolina gubernatorial nominee whose profile boasts another three adjectives — young, Indian-American, female.
Suddenly, the historically monochrome Republican Party is flashing a few glints of color, with 38-year-old Nikki Haley the most prominent representative of a class that represents something of a breakthrough.
The congressional and gubernatorial primaries held so far this year have put the GOP on the verge of electing an array of diverse new faces to high office, which stands to upend the party’s country club image and perhaps even diminish one of the most enduring punch lines in American politics.
This won't solve the GOP’s deep structural problems in a rapidly changing country — namely the party’s weakness among young and non-white voters — but the unusual crop of candidates plays against stereotypes of the party in ways that are a vast relief to top Republican strategists.
There has never been a non-white female governor in the nation’s history — yet the GOP could elect two in November. New Mexico’s Susana Martinez, an Hispanic, won her party’s nomination last month, and South Carolina’s Haley, who got just less than half the vote in her primary Tuesday and is the heavy favorite in a runoff later this month.
In the West, where Democrats made significant inroads in the past two election cycles, Republicans have nominated a pair of women to run for governor and Senate in California, a woman to run for the Senate and an Hispanic to run for governor in Nevada. There also are competitive female gubernatorial and Senate candidates in Arizona and Colorado. In Hawaii, Lt Gov. Duke Aiona, who is of Chinese, Portuguese and native Hawaiian descent, is running for governor.
In Florida, 39-year-old Cuban-American Senate hopeful Marco Rubio became such a hit among conservatives that he forced a once-popular governor out of the party and is already being talked about as having a place on a future national ticket.
And after lacking a single black Republican in Congress since 2003, Republicans are fielding a number of African-American House candidate — including one, Tim Scott of South Carolina, who would be the first Deep South black Republican since Reconstruction.
"Our party is going to be led by younger and more diverse elected officials," crowed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who lent his support to a number of the candidates, in an e-mail. "They are united in embracing a rollback of government’s power, American entrepreneurial capitalism and a zeal for reform."
In the short-term, a diverse group of GOP office holders next year would translate into a new set of potential surrogates for the party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Particularly in battleground states, having a woman or minority statewide official could help in those communities where Republican White House hopefuls have lagged.
More importantly, though, the election of a roster of non-white male Republicans now would be self-reinforcing in the years to come both with candidates and voters.
“This is going to lead to more diverse candidates running,” said former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove. “And their election and their performance will help further pry open these demographics.”
The country’s increasing diversity makes the issue a simple one of survival, said former Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie. “Republicans can’t be a majority without minorities.”
Republicans have fielded scores of women and non-white candidates in the past, of course, but the rainbow of GOP candidates with a real chance to win this year is expansive — and it hasn’t occurred by happenstance.
GOP leaders and operatives, acutely aware of the party’s image problem and cognizant that past “outreach” efforts have been half-hearted or ineffective, worked early to recruit and bolster minority and women candidates.
Some of this has been visible.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has lent her powerful endorsement to a group of female candidates and defended Haley at a pivotal time in the Palmetto State's primary.
“They happen to represent what is right, and needed, in this country,” wrote Palin in an e-mail about such candidates as Haley and New Mexico’s Martinez.
“Their families' diverse backgrounds are no doubt beneficial in providing unique perspective on how important it is to do more than just talk about equality — they've seized opportunity to live out that foundational value in this great melting pot,” Palin continued, noting that her husband’s own Alaska Native background had “positively impacted [her] appreciation for diverse backgrounds.”
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, has also been aggressive in trying to diversify his caucus, wading into GOP primaries to back women, Hispanics and African-Americans, offering his endorsement and sending financial contributions.
“We’re a new party this year,” Cantor said.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele, himself an African-American former officeholder, has also worked to recruit minority candidates up and down the ballot, offering the national committee as an organizational resource for hopefuls who are often new to the rigors of national politics.
Unlike in some cycles where the party fielded minority candidates with little chance, Steele said the difference for the GOP now is that they are running truly viable women and minorities.
“It’s not enough to run, you’ve got to win,” he said.
With many conservatives scorning identity politics, though, race and gender representation is a delicate issue among Republicans. Add in the sensitivities inherent in primary contests, and some party officials would rather not talk publicly about their efforts to diversify their ranks.
But behind the scenes, some of the most senior GOP leaders in the country have worked feverishly to recruit and advance select candidates, POLITICO has learned.
In Nevada, the leaders of the Republican Governors Association, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and executive director Nick Ayers, met and called former Attorney General and federal court Judge Brian Sandoval, an Hispanic, multiple times last year to coax him into challenging embattled Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons.
In New Mexico, RGA officials and Texas Gov. Rick Perry worked to boost Martinez, helping to deliver her $450,000 from Houston homebuilder and GOP mega-donor Bob Perry in the final weeks of her primary as well as an endorsement from Palin.
And in South Carolina, the RGA also helped to wire the Palin endorsement for Haley while offering other quiet organizational and financial assistance well before essentially endorsing her this week after she easily bested three opponents and fell just short of capturing the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
“They’ve been enormously helpful to Nikki Haley and not just in recent days,” said a source close to Haley. “They saw Nikki early on as a candidate that was very good for the Republican brand.”
Other leading national Republicans are also making no secret of their preference for Haley, even as she still faces opposition from GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett, who, with 22 percent of the vote, was her nearest primary competitor.
Rove said he had not urged Barrett to get out of the race—but indicated he didn’t have to.
“There is no way a guy who got 20 some-odd percent is going to go catch a woman who got 49 percent,” he observed.
And while the NRCC is officially neutral in party primaries, officials there can’t help but talk up some of the African-American House candidates who still face intra-party competition including Ryan Frazier in Colorado, Allen West in Florida, Vernon Parker in Arizona and Scott in South Carolina.
Scott, who faces the son of Sen. Strom Thurmond in a runoff later this month, has particularly caught the eye of national Republicans, both because of his considerable potential and because of the symbolism of electing an African-American Republican from a state so identified with the South’s racial history.
“He’s a first-rate guy,” said Rove of Scott, noting that he would be sending him a contribution.
And, Republicans hasten to note, the women and minority candidates they’re fielding are hardly tokens.
“These are not just people of various backgrounds but people of accomplishment,” said Sandoval, himself a former legislator, federal judge, state attorney general and gaming commissioner.
For every stride forward, though, Republicans are hampered by those within the conservative coalition who still harbor racist views. This lingering challenge was on display in the final days of the South Carolina primary, when a prominent GOP state senator dismissed both Haley and President Obama as "ragheads."
To this end, Democrats are monitoring the GOP efforts closely but suggest that until they forsake rhetoric meant to play off the fears of white voters, their new image will mostly just be cosmetic.
“The GOP needs more than a political facelift,” said longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. “[They] also must totally destroy their old political playbook that relied more on the politics of division.”
But at a more practical level, Democratic operatives are nervous about some of the new faces emerging in the Republican ranks and the challenge they could pose.
Haley, in particular, strikes a formidable image: a young, attractive Southern conservative mother who is the daughter of immigrants.
Chris Cooper, a national Democratic consultant and South Carolina native, said that unless recent allegations of her infidelity are proven, Haley will be difficult to beat in the fall.
“She’s on her way to becoming a cultural phenomenon,” Cooper said. “She could be a force of nature.”
