GOP Base Rejects Pro-Choice Republicans: 'We Would Never Bend On That'

House Republicans, in search of an identity, are playing with fire.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), in charge of recruiting Republican candidates for the House, told Bloomberg that the party is searching for people who are "ethnically diverse, female, less partisan and even supportive of abortion rights."

Pro-life organizations have another word for such candidates -- pro-abortion -- and they're not happy to have them in the GOP tent. The Huffington Post didn't have to look far to find conservative groups threatening revolt over the move.

"I think it's dumb," said Joseph M. Scheidler, founder and head of the Pro-Life Action League. "If they start supporting pro-choice -- or pro-abortion -- candidates, they're going to really rile up their conservative base. We don't want pro-choice Republicans or Democrats, because we're issue-oriented, not party-oriented. We'd just as well have our own party."

That party's new branding offshoot, the National Council for a New America, isn't the kind of thing Scheidler has in mind. Bloomberg asked Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the NCNA's willingness to listen to moderate voices, some of which are pro-choice, in policy debates.