While top GOP presidential candidates skip minority debate tonight, California Republicans are mum

From Brian Brokaw:

Tonight in Baltimore, the GOP’s “Tiny Tent” strategy will again be in full force, with the Republican Party’s top four presidential candidates conspicuously absent from a debate focusing on minority issues.

The AP reports: “The four leading Republican candidates — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney — cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at Morgan State University, a historically black college.”

This latest ingenious Republican tactic, brilliantly designed to reach out to fewer and fewer potential voters, comes on the heels of the release of a Republican polling firm’s survey that found: “Americans aren’t just having a tough time seeing themselves pulling the lever for Republicans these days. Fewer are seeing themselves as Republicans, period.”

One might think that Republicans in a state like California, the most ethnically diverse state in the nation, would be vociferously opposing national Republicans’ party-shrinking efforts – but the California GOP hasn’t uttered a peep.

Then again, considering the state GOP’s own record (or lack thereof) with respect to growing its ranks, perhaps their silence isn’t much of a surprise after all.