Anaheim --

Weary Republicans, watching their party teeter on the brink of irrelevance in solidly blue California, hope to expand Ronald Reagan's "big tent" with a fresh crop of young, libertarian-leaning Republicans - a tech-savvy new generation that's impatient with losing elections.

"I believe in a government that is smaller, and smarter and limited ... and stays out of your life," said Dublin attorney Catharine Baker, 42, a pro-choice, pro-same-sex-marriage mother of twins campaigning in a 16th Assembly District race that has been designated one of the party's top priorities for 2014.

"I have received no blowback" for positions that not long ago would have raised eyebrows among California Republicans," Baker said. "What it says about the party is that people are realizing that there are a lot of other issues that we agree on."

Baker was a star attraction among hundreds of California Republicans gathered for their statewide convention at the Anaheim Hilton this weekend to discuss strategy, organization and issues for the 2014 midterm elections.

Republican stars

Activists heard from marquee GOP names like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a potential 2016 presidential candidate who delivered a traditional message about the divide between Democrats and Republicans on economic issues.

And they were wooed by 2014 gubernatorial candidate Abel Maldonado, the former California lieutenant governor whose just-announced pro-same-sex marriage and pro-choice positions would have been considered political suicide for the top of the ticket just a few years ago.

But delegates also got a peek at a new breed of California Republican, who many say may hold the key to the party's future in a state where the GOP still lags 13 percentage points behind Democrats in voter registration.

Among them is Neel Kashkari, a former administrator of the Troubled Asset Relief Program for two presidential administrations. The potential 2014 gubernatorial candidate has acknowledged voting for Barack Obama in 2008.

Kashkari is drawing notice with his unorthodox approach in what would be his first run for political office.

On Saturday, he eschewed the traditional entourage and didn't even announce his attendance at the state convention. The Indian American executive from Orange County roamed the halls and met with delegates, sitting in the general areas of the convention hall.

"You see a much more libertarian philosophy rearing its head in the state GOP," said Brad Torgan, who in his failed 2012 run for the Assembly seat representing West Hollywood became a rare openly gay candidate to win the Republican Party endorsement. "We're seeing candidates who aren't all pale and male."

New faces that reflect the change include Korean American Young Kim, an Assembly candidate from Fullerton (Orange County) who opened her campaign at the convention Friday.

The changes suggest an awakening among a still small but determined crowd of California Republicans who argue the party can't survive being dominated by older white males, or by continuing to flog conservative social positions in a state that supports abortion rights, same-sex marriage and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Signs of the GOP awakening are seen in the campaign posters at the convention for "Conservative Aaron Ginn" - a 25-year-old evangelical Christian techie from San Mateo - that tout him with three words: "Technology. Grassroots. Youth."

As an executive with the San Francisco firm StumbleUpon, he has a free-market, libertarian bent and has been tapped to help the GOP close its digital divide with Democrats.

'I Like Ginn'

At late night convention parties, the hippest GOP accoutrement of the weekend was a lapel sticker that read: "I like Ginn." It is a nod to a generation of Republicans younger than the gin-and-tonic set of yesteryear.

"He's confident. Smart. He really reminds me a lot of the people I worked with at Google and Facebook," said Andy Barkett, the former Facebook and Google engineer whom the Republican National Committee just tapped as its first chief technology officer. "I would love to get all of the Aaron Ginns in the world on board."

Barkett, a 33-year-old who lives in Redwood City, was a decline-to-state voter until he was hired by the national party in June. Every day since, conservative techies have "come out" to him, he said. They may not be registered Republicans, but they share the same free-market beliefs, he said.

"It's only surprising if you believe that there's no Republicans (in Silicon Valley), and yet that happens every day to me," Barkett said. "Which proves there's actually a whole lot of them out there."

Charles Moran, who heads California's Log Cabin Republicans, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group, said the next generation of GOP candidates owe their rise to some significant changes on the political front.

The passage of Proposition 14 introduced California's landmark "top two" primary system in which the top finishers advance to the general election without regard to party affiliation. The reform has encouraged more moderate candidates who appeal to a broader audience.

Changing tone, direction

But Moran also credits state party chair Jim Brulte, who "has made clear he wants the tone and directions to change."

"We're at 28 percent in the voter rolls, and we can't exclude anybody," Moran said. "We're changing and tweaking things that are going to make the party most inclusive" - with the goal of getting in the "win" column.

Moran said it will take time for the California Republican Party, but members hope to see real gains by the time GOP activists hold their 2014 statewide gathering in March in that most untraditional of Republican places - San Francisco.