Romney’s struggle with the popular vote

>>> i have just sent the following telegram to president nixon . congratulations on your victory. i hope that in the next four years you will lead us to a time of peace abroad and justice at home.

>> good evening, my fellow americans.

>> a telegram. i guess now it would be an e-mail. it's interesting it wasn't a phone call . daily flashback. this day in 1972 when president nixon won in a landslide. opted not to make a concession call because he figured the telegram would be easier. by the way, the late george mcgovern has this yoet. apparently he was asked when do you get over it and mcgovern said when do you get over losing the presidential race and the governor responded i'll let you know when i do. sorry about that, governor romney. but that is apparently how long it takes. last night marked the fifth time in six elections that republicans lost the popular vote for president. for president obama he won african-american voters 71% of latinos, mitt romney won white evangelicals with 78%. here's what senator dick durbin had to say about this breakdown.

>> we're a diverse nation. we should be a nation where both political parties appeal to all of the people in this country. when the candidate for the republican party says i will veto the dream act , it is like a dagger to the heart of hispanic voters akros america.

>> i want to bring in meet the press analyst mike murphy . good morning.

>> good morning, chuck.

>> i want to ask, who lost this presidential race ? mitt romney or the republican party ?

>> well, both. i mean, they're kind of interconnected. i think mitt was a very good candidate. the problem is there's so many levels of failure in this thing. the biggest thing is demographic. i wrote for "time" three and a half years ago called the coming ice age for the republican party . i'm wearing my sweater today. it's getting colder and colder. the country's changing and the people our party appeals to is a static group. that's a recipe for extinction. the question is whether or not we're going to have an adult conversation inside the party about our need to attract more people than grumpy old white guys. and the policy problems with gay marriage and immigration reform .

>> mike, you hear all the -- but you're going to like these quotes. susan collins says we have to recognize the demographic changes in this country. marco rubio , the conservative movement should have a particular appeal to immigrant minorities. need to work harder than ever before to communicate our beliefs to them. and yet your party still holds primaries, doesn't it? i mean, this is the issue. it's the primary process that creates the special interest race to the right. does it not?

>> it does. both parties do. if the president had a primary this year, somebody would have gotten a third of the vote against him if they were famous enough. i've said for a long time the incentives in our primary are disconnected from winning a general election . not all our primary voters are as movement concerned ae the activists. our free market in the primary need to answer that. a lot of the leadership and kind of the heart and soul of the activist wing of the republican party is in total denial about this. the question is how many elections we have to lose. hopefully not more because time is running out.

>> what do you tell speaker boehner to do when he's got clearly a sort of a built in majority right now thanks to redistricting and so many house republican incumbents won in comfortable areas. they have their cozy sweaters on. the ice age is happening in other parts. they don't have to worry about it because their maps got drawn. and that's just -- that's what created these problems the first time. todd akin 's a house republican.

>> well, there's a huge d -- now senate politics. we got clobbered in senate races. but senate and presidential politics have become completely divorced from congressional politics. people sit in safe districts with maybe two dozen exceptions and it doesn't matter what happens. so they're in these igloos on both sides and they're incentivized to tilt to the special interests that drive their primaries. one last thing. go ahead.

>> who's the leader of the republican party this morning?

>> you know, there's going to be a slug fest to find out. it's going to be a slow process. we've got tribal information in the party. and this knowledge of losing tomorrow is going to be a huge shock to people. they're going to think what america is this. everybody i know voted for romney. rasmussen said we were almost always ahead. we have to shatter that. and finally we've got to form the operative class of the republican party . we've had two presidential elections now that were strategic train wrecks. we've lost the ability to know how to appeal beyond our base mechanically. it's time for a shakeup. we used to be better than the democrats. they're now better than us. just like this israeli army , it's time for brutal honesty inside our party.

>> you've just given us a