Now that President Obama has secured a second term in office, many Republicans are asking themselves a simple question: Now what?
Do they broaden the party’s appeal? Go for the middle? Get the far right more involved?
Bloomberg View’s Jonathan Alter weighed in on Friday’s Hardball, arguing the GOP “needs to come to terms with the fact that they just aren’t appealing to enough people…They need a friendlier, more uplifting, more inclusive message and if they don’t get it, they won’t get power back.”
He said the GOP does have an “opportunity to get back into this,” but they must refashion their message to appeal “beyond aging, white men.”
The Grio’s Joy Reid was less optimistic, insisting the GOP’s core philosophy is simply not popular with minority groups that helped propel Obama back into the White House. African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans believe government has a role in proving help for the elderly, poor, in addition to supporting a social safety net, she said. Republicans, Reid argued, do not.
Others, like Fox News’ Charles Krauthammer have argued Mitt Romney lost because he was a “northeastern liberal and that’s not where we’re going.” He said he had hope in slew of young conservative candidates, including Kelly Ayotte, Boby Jindal, and Ted Cruz, as the “rising young generation of the party.” The msnbc panel reacted: Isn’t that more of the same?
Host Chris Matthews argued the GOP can and will change.
“You did it because you have to,” he said. “Politicians who have any survival skills learn to adapt.”
