GOP looking for candidates who can appeal to their districts

Bloomberg:

Republicans are getting inspiration on how to rebuild their party in the U.S. Congress from an unlikely source: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

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.

Emanuel, a former U.S. representative from Illinois, put the template into practice in 2006 when he was leading the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Candidates he recruited won in Republican districts by holding positions uncommon for Democrats such as opposition to abortion and support for gun rights.

“Have you read ‘The Thumpin’?” McCarthy, 44, asked, citing a book about Emanuel’s brass-knuckles approach to winning control of the House for Democrats in 2006. “This isn’t original thought.”

In the 2006 election, Emanuel, 49, recruited anti- abortion, pro-gun candidates such as Brad Ellsworth, 50, a sheriff in Indiana, and Heath Shuler, 37, a former NFL quarterback, in North Carolina. The premise: identify candidates whose views best mirror those of their districts’ constituents rather than Democratic Party orthodoxy.

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McCarthy said such openness is necessary to rebuild the party, which lost control of Congress and the White House in the past two election cycles. “We’re at 178” seats in the House out of 435, he said. “You get beyond the majority and people can worry about what they want to purify.”

That argument is rankling some Republicans, who said the party must continue to distinguish itself from the Democrats.

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The purist do not like the strategy, but they need to recognize that the Republicans can get more of their agenda adopted with a majority than they can with the current 178 seats in the House. Actually, things are moving in their direction as the radical Democrat agenda is taking shape. The GOP now leads in the generic ballot for House races. Opposition to Democrat spending on boondoggles and their ambitious tax schemes on energy and health care are going to give Republicans a good chance of winning a lot of races in 2010. Having candidates who don't look scary in liberal to moderate districts can make a difference.