GOP Strategist Slams House Republicans For Looking Like A 1950s Corporate Board

Democrats "look like America and our future," tweets a top aide to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.
GOP men in the House.
GOP men in the House.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images

The Democratic House majority swept into power on Thursday with an infusion of women and people of color. The Republicans, not so much.

GOP strategist Stuart Stevens slammed the “optics” of his party’s representatives on Friday, saying they looked like members of a corporate board from the 1950s — i.e., a bunch of white guys.

A photo of the Democrats, on the other hand, looked like “America and our future,” tweeted Stevens, who served as a top aide to Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) 2012 presidential campaign against Barack Obama.

The Democratic women of the House.
The Democratic women of the House.
The Guardian

Romney’s resounding loss to Obama convinced the Republican Party to conduct an “autopsy” of what happened. The problem, the 2013 “Growth and Opportunity” report suggested, was that the party was appealing to a shrinking number of Americans, implying suicide by demographics. The report concluded that the GOP favored wealthy and conservative aging white voters but alienated women and minorities, and therefore encouraged greater inclusivity for the party.

In one of the more startling (for the GOP) conclusions, the report stated: “We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

Fast-forward to the election of Donald Trump, who created a Cabinet with the highest percentage of white males in 36 years and hasn’t implemented the kind of immigration reform the party envisioned in 2013.

Ari Fleischer, a press secretary to former President George W. Bush and an author of the autopsy report, said after Trump’s election that the demographic trend the GOP was concerned about in 2013 is continuing.

“Trump may have changed the math, but only temporarily,” Fleischer said.

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