Republicans bring in media specialists to teach them how to speak to women and minorities

Chris Moody
·Political Reporter

LOS ANGELES—If you're curious about areas where Republicans believe they still need improvement, look no further than the schedule for this week's Republican National Committee spring meeting, where party activists will spend an entire afternoon learning how to engage minority and female voters.

The party's top activists planned to spend much of Thursday in strategy meetings aimed at best practices for packaging and presenting their conservative ideas to young people, women, and black, Hispanic, and Asian constituencies. The training is part of the party's new outreach effort to types of voters who overwhelmingly have supported Democrats in recent elections.

The names of the workshops include:

- "Republican Messaging: How to say what we mean and show that we care"

- "Growing the Party: Working with Minority," led by Micah Grant, an "African American media specialist;" Susie Wong, an "ethnic minority media specialist;" and "Chiqui Cartagena, vice president of corporate marketing for Univision."

- "Recruiting the Next American Generation"

- "Taking the Message to New Places"

- "Winning the Women's Vote"

After the sessions, conference attendees will take a tour of Fox studios in Los Angeles, where they will listen to a keynote address from Allen West, a black Republican former lawmaker from Florida who recently launched an organization to recruit minority candidates for office.

After last year's national election, in which Democrats retained control of the White House and bolstered their numbers in Congress, prominent Republicans called for the party to make engaging female and minority voters a priority as part of a new "growth and opportunity" strategy.

On Wednesday, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul delivered an address to students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a historically black college. Last month, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus met with black community leaders at the Christian Cultural Center in East Brooklyn.