I heard Jeb Bush on meet the press speaking on broadening the appeal of the GOP and I couldnt agree more.

I am a Dem and have said in this and other threads that the GOP needs to stop pandering to the racist, bigoted, homophobes in the party.

Jeb Bush is probably more conservative than Romney and understands this. Appealing or reaching out to minority voters is not being moderate. I feel like some in the GOP see it that way. The party doesnt have to change their position on issues. They just have to maybe present it differently but more importantly, they need to stop with the race baiting and other nonsense.

And to ignore it as if it doesnt exist is even more of an insult. The GOP doesnt get a small percentage of minority votes for no reason. And this is historic for a while. Obama didnt change demographics. The GOP is not a party open to minorities. Until they accept this as fact and stop pretending that everyone else is racist for bringing it up, maybe then they can start really looking into the issue and drawing other people in more

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont know why we go off on these tangents. Mitt was playing to the local crowd about how strong his Michigan roots are, and he used a dumb joke to emphasize the fact. We should be used to Mitt's lame sense of humor by now, and not get tied up it it.

He deserves it as retribution for the way they twisted "You didn't build that." and the welfare flexibility for the states. But those are significant issues, and I hate to see this distracting from those more fundamental faults.

The Romney campaign has now clearly decided that being unable to attract blacks and Hispanics, it must drive a wedge between Obama and working class whites. On the one hand it is doing that with the welfare ads, which now make up the bulk of Romney's advertising. Accompanied by statements such as "Obama removed work from welfare to play to his base", the message is that Obama is taking tax dollars from white people and giving them to minorities. The birth certificate "joke" is just one more way to emphasize that Obama is "foreign", along with the remark that he doesn't understand the American system.

If Romney's statement were simply a dumb joke, I'd be inclined to agree with you that it should be ignored. But, given the evidence that it is part of a cynical ploy to exploit racial divisions for political gain, I don't think we can afford to ignore it.

Jeb Bush, John McCain and Dan Quayle had quite a bit to say about the Romney campaign and the Hispanic vote :
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/26/news/la-pn-jeb-bush-to-gop-time-to-change-the-tone-on-immigration-20120826
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/08/26/jeb-bush-and-john-mccain-call-on-romney-to-focus-on-latino-vote/
http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/08/27/jeb-bush-dan-quayle-inclusion-republican-party/

They are right. I have been posting about this for three years now. Even Karl Rove agrees. The party is doomed to minority status if it does not widen its appeal.