Romney adviser: Should have reached out to women, Hispanics

(CBS News) As President Obama and Mitt Romney plan to have lunch at the White House Thursday, Romney's top campaign strategists reflected on why the former Massachusetts governor lost on November 6.

"I think we should have done a better job reaching out to women voters," Stuart Stevens said on "CBS This Morning." He added that Romney should have also done a better job with Hispanic voters. "We should have done it earlier and in a more effective way."

Romney lost the Hispanic vote by more than 40 points and took a hard-line approach on immigration during the Republican primary.

Stevens dismissed the critique that Romney was a flawed candidate lacking well-defined ideas. "The ideas carried the day for us, and the success that we had... was based on the candidate Mitt Romney and on his ideas."

Stevens has been out defending Romney. He wrote an op-ed published Wednesday that Romney "captured the imagination of millions of Americans."

Stevens, however, also credited the Obama campaign for their message to voters who approved of the president's job.

"The Obama campaign did a very good job of speaking to voters who felt that his presidency had been a success," Stevens said.

Stevens also complimented the Obama camp, saying they "ran a great campaign." He offered a comparison between the two campaigns as well. He said Romney ran a national campaign while the president ran a campaign focused on issues specific to a select number of key battleground states.

Romney "wanted to talk about big national issues -- debt, entitlements, the future of the country. He wanted to put big questions before the country," Stevens said.