They still don't get it, and based on this exchange, they never will. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal received wide bi-partisan praise last week for his strong criticism of Governor Romney after he doubled down on his "47%" remark by suggesting
November 19, 2012

They still don't get it, and based on this exchange, they never will.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal received wide bi-partisan praise last week for his strong criticism of Governor Romney after he doubled down on his "47%" remark by suggesting President Obama won by promising his base "free stuff". Jindal called Romney's remarks "stupid", noting that the way to win over voters isn't to show contempt for them or question their intelligence, but never actually explained what Republicans SHOULD do instead. Which makes this exchange on Fox "news" Sunday yesterday all the more fascinating.

Fox "news" Sunday's Chris Wallace points out to Jindal that "single-women voters broke heavily for President Obama over Gov. Romney and asked what can be done to fix it:

WALLACE: And, Governor Jindal, let's take a look at unmarried women, who backed Obama by a wide margin. Unmarried women voted for Obama by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent.

Governor, you say to Republicans, don't change your principles, modernize. Don't moderate. But, you've got to know during this campaign, the Democrats hammered your party when it came to freedom of choice on abortion, when it came to access to birth control, when it came to funding of Planned Parenthood.

How do you convince unmarried women that you are looking out for them?

JINDAL: Well, Chris, a couple of things. One, I think we can still be true to our principles -- I'm pro-life. I follow the teachings of my church and my faith.

But at the same time, I think we can respect those that disagree with us. We don't need to demonize those who disagree with us. We need to respect the fact that others have come to different conclusions based on their own sincerely held beliefs and have a civil debate.

We don't need to demonize -- and we also don't need to be saying stupid things [referring to Romney's remarks]. Look, we had candidates in Indiana and Missouri that said offensive things that only hurt themselves and lost those Senate seats, but also have hurt the Republican Party across the board. So, I think we can be true to our principles. We don't need to pander or change our principles, but at the same time, we can be respectful.

"We can respect those that disagree with US"? Yes, because the way to make women feel welcome is to think of them as outsiders. And I find it fascinating that he acknowledges that they had candidates (Akin and Mourdock) that "said stupid things", but not the fact they represent a far deeper problem with the GOP than he seems to realize. The problem with Akin and Mourdock is that they actually said out loud what many of them already think in private.

The initial question posed to Gov. Jindal already points to one huge glaring fact: Single women didn't vote for the President 2-to-1 over Romney simply because of women's health issues ("freedom of choice on abortion, birth control, and Planned Parenthood"). The GOP had a candidate that refused to even say he supported "equal pay for equal work" during the debates, and refused to denounce Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke "a slut" (in addition to the "redefine rape" guys: Todd Akin, Roscoe Bartlett & Richard Mourdock).

The fact Republicans STILL doesn't get that their problem with women voters goes FAR beyond just a disagreement on Abortion, means they haven't learned a thing from this latest election-trouncing. And believing the way to win back women voters is to prove the GOP can tolerate them rather than actually ADDRESS their concerns, further guarantees (thankfully) their continuing future irrelevance for at least one more election (and likely many more).

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