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All the Republican Party needs to recover from its presidential defeat is a new message, a new image, and some fresh faces. And usher Mitt Romney offstage. That's it. Piece of cake.

But first, it must usher out the remembrance of party leaders past. That would be Mitt Romney – who, in fact, has been making it easier for the GOP to do just that.

Echoing his infamous “47 percent” off-the-record comment to big donors during the campaign, he upped that to 51 percent in his post-election remarks (again, to donors) about how Barack Obama had won by purchasing his vote majority with “gifts” to liberal interest groups.

Grapes never seemed so sour, and Republicans were quick to rebuke such blame-gamesmanship.

The Associated Press interviewed a bunch of Republican notables, and their message was essentially the same.

Veteran Republican strategist Ron Kaufman, who advised Romney's campaign: "The bottom line is we were perceived to be intolerant on some issues. And tone-deaf on others."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ran against Romney in the GOP primaries and caucuses: “We were clearly wrong on a whole range of fronts…. There are whole sections of the American public that we didn't even engage with.”

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who chaired the party during the 1990s: "We've got to have a very brutally honest review from stem to stern of what we did and what we didn't do, and what worked and what failed.”

Kevin McLaughlin, a Republican operative who worked on several Senate races: “We need candidates who are capable of articulating their policy positions without alienating massive voting blocs.”More at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2012/1118/GOP-crafts-ne
w-image-as-it-hustles-Mitt-Romney-out-the-door

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