Rand Paul: "GOP can turn California red"

[hopper]

sure a pro-choice, pro-SSM, pro-immigration, pro-environment Republican could do well in CA. I wish more of those existed

Well Pro-Choice probably of the 3 of those that you named. Maybe middle of the road environmentally too.  The GOP is actually liberal on immigration its the 11 million people here in the US illegally that splits the party.

[hopper]

California could be relatively close if the GOP became a sane center-right party instead of a bunch of nutjobs. Of course, that's not gonna happen (and Rand Paul is part of the problem).

The sane center-right types increasingly find themselves  irrelevant to the Republican Party. Just look at what it did to Bob Bennett in Utah and Richard Lugar in Indiana. Just note that elder statesman John Warner said of the Republican Party in Virginia.

The GOP is not going to get the message until it feels a left-populist backlash, especially in the South.       

The South is not even left-populist now economically.

[hopper]

I would think that ship sailed for good in 2010, if not 1992.

No, 1994 Feinstein almost lost her race for US Senate. The GOP won a majority in the States General Assembly for the 1995-1996 session.

[hopper]

I saw an article on the "Cook Political Report" that said CA Whites voted 51% Dem vs the 38% of the White Vote that Dems got nationally in 2014 Congressional Races. The difference was that on the CA coast where 56% of Whites voted for a Dem Candidate. Outside of the CA coast(i.e. inland) CA Whites voted like the rest of the country.