CONDI RICE: "GOP Clearly Losing Important Segments Of The Electorate". OK, GOP IDIOTS WILL START CALLING HER A RINO NOW!

GOP ‘clearly losing important segments’ of the electorate, Condoleezza Rice says
Reuters and Associated Press

Condoleezza Rice has entered the growing debate over the future of the Republican Party fueling growing speculation the former Secretary of State may herself run as a presidential candidate in 2016.

Rice claimed the party must adapt better to rapidly changing demographics in the United States, saying the GOP sent “mixed messages” in the election campaign on immigration and women’s issues.

Rice told CBS This Morning the changing face of America “really necessitates” new thinking. She says, quote, “When you send mixed messages, sometimes people hear only one side of that.” Rice says the GOP came close to matching the Democrats in the popular vote. But she also acknowledges that “clearly we are losing important segments” of the electorate. Rice adds that the party needs to “appeal to those groups.”

Rice says she wouldn’t be interested in succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, even if asked to do so by President Barack Obama.

Time MagazineCondoleezza Rice posed for a photograph in Time's 2016 politicians to watch photo essay.

Tuesday’s decisive win by Obama highlighted how population shifts — ethnic and generational — have buoyed Democrats while forcing Republicans to rethink their message.

Without recasting their core message and actively trying to expand their base beyond older mostly white Americans, conservatives could struggle even more in future elections as the nation’s population incorporates more Latinos, Asians and other minorities as well as young voters, analysts said.

First-time voters, including many young people and immigrants, favored the president by large margins, while older voters leaned to Republican Mitt Romney, Reuters/Ipsos Election Day polling showed.

Although Rice has not said if she has any further political aspirations, her name has often been thrown around as a potential 2016 presidential candidate for the Republican party. Notably, she was part of a Time Magazine‘s “TIME’s Class of 2016: The Political Leaders to Watch“ which, essentially, laid out the current top contenders for the 2016 race, including Hillary Clinton.

National Post GraphicsClick here to see a detailed breakdown of who voted for Obama

Obama won an estimated 66% of the Hispanic vote, according to Reuters/Ipsos election day polling, at a time when the Latino population is growing rapidly in states such as Florida, one of eight or so politically divided states that were crucial in the presidential race. Other estimates put Obama’s share of the Hispanic vote above 70%.

“The nonwhite vote has been growing — tick, tick, tick — slowly, steadily. Every four-year cycle the electorate gets a little bit more diverse. And it’s going to continue,” said Paul Taylor of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

“This is a very powerful demographic that’s changing our politics and our destiny,” Taylor said, adding that the number of white voters is expected to continue to decline a few points in each future election cycle.

Data has shown for years that the United States is poised to become a “majority minority” nation — with whites a minority of the country — over the next several decades. But Tuesday’s results highlighted the political impact.

About 80% of blacks, Latinos and other nonwhite voters cast their ballots for Obama on Tuesday compared with less than 17 percent for Romney, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Obama also won about 63% of total voters age 18 to 34.

Overall, Romney won nearly 57% of the white vote compared with 41% for Obama, the polling data showed. The vast majority of votes cast for Romney came from white voters.

Demographer William Frey said that division is troubling.

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The United States has long history of racial divide stemming from its roots in slavery and including the civil rights battles of the 1960s.

“We still are a country that’s kind of divided, and a lot of that fissure in the population tends to be based in race and age and ethnicity,” said Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. “There’s kind of a dangerous result in this election when we see older whites moving in one direction and younger minorities moving in another direction.”

Frey said he sees the gap less as racism and more as a cultural generation gap.

“It’s a little bit of a warning sign that we need to pay attention to,” he said.