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The Republican Party is having a conversation about how to reach more than old white people as voters. "What Republicans need to learn is how do we speak to all Americans," House Speaker John Boehner told ABC's Diane Sawyer. "You know, not just the people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans." This seems like a pretty obvious thing to learn how to do, and you might wonder why Republicans didn't kick off this discussion at least back in January 2011, when they won a majority in the House and the long presidential primary was about to start. That would have given them almost two years to say nice things to Latinos. But the problem is not just who's not in the Republican coalition, but who is. For a taste of that constituency, it helps to check out a fascinating thread on Free Republic, "Romney wins white vote by same margin as Reagan did in 1980 landslide."
The Freepers are grappling with what kind of concessions Republicans would have to make to appeal to non-white groups. They do not find these concessions appealing. ("If it involves compromising on principle, I'd rather lose.") Now, it's not entirely fair to use Free Republic as a representation of all Republican voters. So let's just note similar feelings from RedState's Erick Erickson, who writes that Mitt Romney didn't have a insurmountable demographic problem, but a get-out-the-vote problem. "The GOP more likely than not has another few election cycles before the demographics with hispanics become insurmountable and, in the meantime, can find ways to reach out to them and talk to them that do not include amnesty," Erickson writes. Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday that the GOP doesn't "get credit" for having black and Latino Republicans like Condoleezza Rice and Marco Rubio: "But what are we supposed to do now? In order to get the Hispanic or Latino vote, does that mean open the borders and embrace the illegals?"