Gingrich: GOP needs to be "inclusive"

In the aftermath of Mitt Romney's presidential loss last week, Newt Gingrich is joining the cadre of Republicans calling for the Republican Party to more actively reach out to a more diverse electorate, arguing on Monday that the party needs to become more "inclusive."

"I think we need to be inclusive, and I emphasize the difference between inclusive and outreach," Gingrich said Monday morning in an appearance on ABC's "The View." "Outreach is when five white guys have a meeting and call you. Inclusive is when you're in the meeting. And I think we have to understand to be inclusive."

Gingrich, who was joined by his wife Callista on the show, argued that Republicans had "misunderstood the American people" in 2012, and that the GOP can't just wait until 2016 to try to broaden its reach.

"The Republican doctrine of highly paid consultants spending hundreds of millions of dollars on 30-second ads doesn't build a party," he said. "The Republican Party better not wait until 2016. The Republican Party better rethink in 2013 how we're going to deal with the country's issues and do it in a way that the average American looks up and says, you know, those are folks I'm willing to trust with my future. We lost that."

He added that "there were a whole series of fundamental things that were really wrong" with how the GOP framed the 2012 election, including the fact that the Obama campaign so successfully appealed to non-white voters.

"Obama, for example, very intelligently [started] to advertise on Univision and Telemundo months and months before the election, setting a framework," Gingrich said. But, he pointed out, the president didn't just win the Latino vote: Romney lost the Asian-American vote by an even bigger margin.

"We need to stop, take a deep breath, and learn," Gingrich said on a separate appearance on NBC's "Today." "The president won an extraordinary victory. And the fact is we owe him the respect of trying to understand what they did and how they did it."

He added: "But if you had said to me three weeks ago, 'Mitt Romney would get fewer votes than John McCain and it looks like he'll be 2 million fewer,' I would have been dumbfounded."

[fishingnatasha]

What I will never understand about the Republican party is their lack of empathy. It doesn't matter who you think caused the financial meltdown the facts are that there are families without jobs, families losing their homes and more and more falling into poverty. These are human beings in desperate need for fundamental survival and all the Republicans can say is they "want free stuff".

[JimmyZandAll]

This is interesting, but who can the GOP include to be more inclusive? Certainly not Gays, Women, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Middle Income and Lower Income people. Everybody who wants to be included in the GOP is already included.

[saramiller12345]

Myth Robmey got less votes than Grandpa McCain and got less Mormon votes than George Bush. LMAO.

[tdemex]

The party won't change, only talk of ways to WIN. The problems are ....NO Compassion....and GREED!

[imanalian]

How much more inclusive can we be, Newt? We've corralled the fundamentalists, the birthers, the creationists, the global warming denial crowd, the wear-your-pistol-to-bed-to-protect-your-family he-men. We've got the folks who've been told by Jesus that life begins at holding hands, and even the remaining anti-black helicopter defense patrols. Heck, just about any group that semi-literate half-wits gravitate towards. I don't know who is left to include.
Hold on there-you're not thinking of blacks and hispanics, are you? Oh come on, man--most of them have normal IQ's and a lot of them are educated. There's no way many of them are going to vote the way the 1% tells them to.

[Reasonable_Ronan]

LMAO! You Sir are an erudite wordsmith!

[JimmyZandAll]

I love this post! You're so right, the GOP is very inclusive, I never thought of it that way!

[TimeToEvolve]

The importance of this election was that in spite of dirty, laundered, corrupt corporate money favoring the Republicons, most of the American people said no.

As President Obama said, we need to go Forward. And it is up to us the 99% to neuter the power of the Wall Street corporations and filthy rich. We need to go back to the policies of before Reagan who began the current disaster we are living with now.

Trickle down is dead and buried. Free trade and outsourcing has failed miserably. Corporate domination of the world on its way to the scrap heap of history.

[lami987]

As long as republicans continue to take money from midlle and low income Americans and give to the rich and powerful industries they wouldn't get support from most Americans. They can lie and spin through political ads and gain some support from non suspecting Americans but they can't fool most Americans. If they didn't know to be inclusive before this 2012 election they shouldn't be in politics at all. Big talk wouldn't change anything.

[FormerUSMCSergeant]

As long as the repubs do the top 2%'s bidding to the detriment of the other 98%, they will continue to decline.

[Ariyo_Walker]

As Republicans, we need to think of the United States of America as a System or a Super-Organism better than the Democrats... First and Foremost, as Republicans, our Fiduciary responsibility is to the U.S.A. and it's people... We need to all realize better than the Democrats that the Government is the Decision Making System, or should we say, Brain of the USA. So if we realize that it is the Decision Making System or Brain for the Super-Organism known as the USA, then we can put metrics on the effectiveness of the Brain as a whole for the USA as a whole. We can do better than the Democrats on getting Accurate and Precise Metrics on the Decisions and their impact on the Life of the Super-Organism known as the USA... Primarily I see six primary factors for the Life of the USA as a whole that we need to focus on for the Health of the USA as a whole and for the aggregate of all the people in the USA... and after some hard work... We can beat the dems at this!

The Factors of Life: Mind, Body, Time, Economy, Social, and Environment.

The Factors of Life for the USA
* Mind: The Legal Processes, Rules, and Systems that Run the Government.
Make sure the Reasoning, the Bills (Options in Decision), Planning, and Decision Making has the highest Truth/Probability Value and Health Value to the Life of the USA and each of the Factors of Life for the USA.

*Body: The Infrastructure... Roads, Bridges, Buildings, Parks, and Civil Systems
We have to make sure the body is repaired properly, maintained, and developed well.

*Time: A Super-Organism spends its time on Work which We call Economic Productivity.
Get rid of Fillibusters which cost the USA to be delayed and spend its time poorly. We need to stop kicking cans down the road and remove the time costs with better deadlines.

*Economy: In a Super-Organism Economy/Money is Similar to the Circulation of Blood
Like Blood flowing through a body giving nutrients for repair and growth we need to make sure that the money flowing through the USA Repairs the System Health and Growth... Also like blood is used to grow and repair organs in a system, Money is used to grow schools and communities and repair the cells/people and systems in the body of the USA.

*Social: The Social Interactions and Relations with other Super-Organisms
We need to see our character from outside ourselves... Do our social interactions and relations with others Super-Organisms/Countries make our character a Quality Leader, a Bully, a Terrorist, or a Social Disease?

*Environment: The Home of our Super-Organism the USA is Earth.
Should we keep our home clean? Should we litter in our home? Should we put poisons all over the house? If we have a problem and our thermostat keeps rising, should we all just pretend its not happening or that someone else will fix it for us... while it gets Hotter than Hell and we find ourselves in it when Papa told us over and over again to get that Thermostat problem fixed?

Mind

[cntrygirl3]

The republican party touts their "tokens", two Indian governors, one Latino senator one Latino governor gasp two of these women. What more could any minority want. Try respect, try listening, try not bashing, try trusting women to have rational thinking and take responsibility for their own lives. Try not being a bunch of holier than thou radicals who are more suited for Islam than America with their desire for a a theocracy. The republican convention said it all as did the republican platform. This election and especially FOX news polling (remember Romney ahead in several states, gender gap gone), more than anything else showcases why the republicans lost, they simply did not consider minorities, they thought the "novelty" of Mr. Obama's first election had worn off and that "these people" would never turn out in such numbers again, they were very wrong and they can't figure out why, mores the pity.