Hey, GOP: Make Mitt Your Last Bland White Guy

Time for party to win over youth, Latinos: Jonah Goldberg
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 7, 2012 11:54 AM CDT
Hey, GOP: Make Mitt Your Last Bland White Guy
Mitt Romney steps off his charter plane in Chicago before campaigning at Acme Industries in Elk Grove Village, Ill.,Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012.   (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

For this election, Mitt Romney will do: After the hype surrounding candidate Obama, America's ready for "the bland Mr. Fixit type." Afterward, however, the GOP needs to stop kidding itself and get young and Hispanic voters on board, writes Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. But Republicans won't win such support through changing policies and pandering. Instead, they should focus on persuasion.

"Young people almost by definition believe in things they eventually grow out of," Goldberg notes. And the varied base of Latino voters have actually been trending less Democratic over the past three decades, an analyst says. Illegal immigration isn't as big an issue for them as the press would have us believe; just 46% of Latino Democratic voters in 2008 called the issue highly important in exit polls. Democrats' success with Latinos is largely to do with lower incomes, the analyst asserts.The solution for the GOP: "Young, energetic, whip-smart and philosophically coherent politicians" like Marco Rubio. Click for Goldberg's full column. (More Mitt Romney stories.)

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