GOP: 'We have to go beyond' base

Team Maverick campaign strategery:

The Republican Party is going after blue-collar voters and other key blocs that traditionally support Democrats but did not back Sen. Barack Obama in primary contests, a top party official said.
The party also is aggressively pursuing female, Catholic and Hispanic voters - groups that lean Democrat but which Republicans think could defect this year to likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Frank Donatelli, deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee.
"We have to go beyond [the conservative base] in this election, and we are doing that," Mr. Donatelli told The Washington Times. . . .
Mr. Donatelli predicted blue-collar voters would tilt the election to Mr. McCain in the battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania and in states such as Kentucky and West Virginia - all places where Mr. Obama lost primaries to Mrs. Clinton, the latter two by lopsided margins, largely a result of his failure to connect with working-class whites.

McCain just hired two NPR employees -- nothing those PBR-guzzling blue-collar guys like better than tuning into All Things Considered.