New media can’t overcome old message, GOP’s digital strategists say

It was supposed to be the answer to a party in crisis. After the Republican Party’s shellacking by President Obama’s digital army in 2008, a group of influential young consultants preached a new doctrine of GOP politics aimed at organizing and expanding their numbers through the Internet — a transformation that would help draw a whole new generation into the party fold.

Republicans now have the iPhone apps, rapid-response tweets, Facebook likes and microtargeting that put them on par with Democrats. But the digitally fueled push to capture new voters is also a reminder of how much ground the GOP still needs to make up in attracting younger and more diverse supporters. As social media and digital tools have become increasingly mainstream and no longer the domain of the young and the hip, the early stages of GOP’s digital revolution have tended to do more to revive its traditional base of support among older, white voters than expand and diversify the party on a grass-roots level.