The GOP's California Conundrum

  
   With the new Congressional districts drawn out  (plus a few minor changes in the near future) and the shrinking percentage of registered Republicans in California, experts from both parties and from non-partisan groups are saying what many of us have known for a long time, that if Republicans want to compete in this state, they are going to have to move toward the center. But this raises a few important questions for the party in California and in Washington, D.C.: How can California Republicans successfully become more moderate while the national Republican Party becomes more and more conservative? And is California worth all the trouble for Republicans?
   For a very long time, Republicans could reasonably rely on California to vote their way when it counted. Richard Nixon is the only California-born American President. Ronald Reagan governed the state for two terms in the late-60's/early-70's. The thing is, both of them were fairly moderate at the time, Nixon through his limited support of the Civil Rights Movement (if not his notorious red-scaring) and Reagan through his legalizing abortion in California.
   Nowadays, things have changed. Many conservatives, lauding Reagan as the father of new American conservatism, have become more conservative than Reagan himself. No Republican Governor today would even look at a bill that were remotely pro-choice.
   Even worse, Republicans have a history of alienating Latinos in California. They underestimated the political power of Latinos, especially in southern California. They also underestimated the majority opinion on immigration, and just how far from the norm they were in their positions. Latinos accounted for 90% of California's population growth in the last ten years, so obviously, Republicans will have to try to garner some substantial amount of Latino support.
   And even worse than that, "illegal immigration" seems to be an issue on which the national Republican Party refuses to budge. None of the Republican candidates for President have a moderate stance on documentation for students or on paths to legalization for immigrants living in the U.S., and Republicans in the House recently voted down the DREAM Act. The few Republican Congress members representing southern California now find themselves with districts containing more Latinos than they had before, raising concerns that Democrats will unseat them next year.
   California is the most populous state in the nation by millions, it sends the most members of Congress to the House, and it has the eighth-largest economy in the entire world. It's simply too big a whale for Republicans to just give up on. They have no choice but to take up more progressive positions on a variety of issues, including immigration, budgets, taxes, and social safety nets, or become politically obsolete.
  But they have something bigger to fear than their new constituents. And it turns out, the call was coming from inside the house. It's their fellow Republicans, in Washington and in the multitude of conservative PACs, who will fight them in primaries, sending vital campaign cash to their far-right challengers.
   Throughout the 2010 election cylce, the recurring theme of Tea Partiers and conservatives was "principle over party." For Republicans in California, neither principle nor party offer hope of further influence.