Stay classy, Mitt

In case there was any doubt, the defeated Mitt Romney reinforced yesterday that his 47 percent speech represented his real world view:

“You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge,” he said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”...

 Jamil Smith breaks down the easy to crack code:

Frankly, I think African Americans, Latinos, and young people would love to take credit for defeating Mitt Romney. What really is remarkable here is that Romney appears to think that the sectors of society that supported Obama are somehow illegitimate; that responding to their needs (unlike the needs of, say, millionaire bankers) is a perversion of the political process.

And as if on cue, the ghost of Bush 41 strategist Lee Atwater emerges from hell and explicitly spells it out:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

I really, really, REALLY hate having to say this. But good for you, Bobby Jindal:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal forcefully rejected Mitt Romney’s claim that he lost because of President Barack Obama’s “gifts” to minorities and young voters.

Asked about the failed GOP nominee’s reported comments on a conference call with donors earlier Wednesday, the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association became visibly agitated.

“No, I think that’s absolutely wrong,” he said at a press conference that opened the RGA’s post-election meeting here. “Two points on that: One, we have got to stop dividing the American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote.

“And, secondly, we need to continue to show how our policies help every voter out there achieve the American Dream, which is to be in the middle class, which is to be able to give their children an opportunity to be able to get a great education. … So, I absolutely reject that notion, that description. I think that’s absolutely wrong.” 

Now, I don't think Jindal's policies will actually do that. But at least the man is trying.

I've repeatedly argued that 2008, much like 1932 and 1968, represented a realignment in American politics, the dawn of a new era favoring one party. The opposing party suffers for a while, then adapts. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Republican Party's adaptation was to go down that low road that Atwater crudely describes.

But the George Wallace-Richard Nixon era is over, and Atwater's road is a dead end. Republicans need to turn around and seek a higher road like Jindal describes.