U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., talks with a crowd about the national debt during his vice presidential run last year. -Photo: Mitt Romney for President
Republican leaders at a winter meeting in January focused on how to thaw icy relations with influential voting blocs offended by the anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-woman agenda the GOP has promoted in recent years.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, in a keynote address at the RNC meeting in Charlotte, N.C., said the party must “stop being the stupid party.”
Jindal, seen as a likely candidate for president in 2016, said, “It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I’m here to say we’ve had enough of that.”
At the end of the meeting, the party re-elected Wisconsin’s Reince Priebus to a two-year term as chairman. He too said the party must be transformed to build its ranks.
“We have to take our message of opportunity where it’s not being heard,” Priebus said in his acceptance speech. “We have to build better relationships in minority communities, urban centers and college towns. We need a permanent, growing presence.”
After the meeting, in an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, Priebus wrote, “In the next election, I don’t know who will win – or even who will run. But I know this: Republicans will be a party people will want to join. We will be a party that says, ‘Follow us to a brighter future.’ We will make our principles relevant to our time and relatable to voters as we champion prosperity, success and freedom for all.”
But can that happen with party leaders, including Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – both seen as possible names on at the top of the ticket in 2016 – continuing to court the right?
After the GOP’s winter meeting, where the official theme was “Renew, Grow, Win,” many Republican leaders moved on to a summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by the National Review Institute.
Speakers included Walker, Ryan, Jindal, Jim DeMint of the Heritage Foundation, National Organization for Marriage former president Maggie Gallagher and Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed.
Ryan said in the next four years the president would seek to demonize Republicans but that conservatives must hold firm. At the end of his speech, he recounted how he recharged for the fight after the election.
“I needed to get into the woods,” Ryan said. “That’s where I recharge. So I took my daughter Liza hunting with me in Oklahoma. And she got her first deer. And I realized just how quickly she was growing up. That got me thinking. When I’m old and gray – and my grandkids ask me about this moment – I don’t want to tell them how America lost its way. I don’t want to say, ‘Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for any of it.’ Instead, I want to tell them how America got back on track. I want to look at them and say, ‘Yeah, it was tough. But it was worth it.’”
