Big Tent

If you recall, the Republican 2000 convention was billed as Republican efforts to create a big tent party with a more expansive platform and greater diversity.  Those efforts did not seem to pay off as the 2008 convention was regularly criticized in the same way Dave Letterman mocked the Republican primary debates as "a bunch of white guys waiting to tee off."

Interestingly enough, 8 years after the Republican Big Tent effort, the Democratic Party now has a black President-elect, a woman Speaker of the House, and a Mormon Senate Majority Leader.  And it never felt like they were trying to do that.