(CNN) – “We must stop being the stupid party.” “We must stop looking backward.” “We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal held little back with his sharp words to Republicans Thursday evening, urging his own party to rethink their arguments against Democrats and appeals to voters in his remarks to party members attending the Republican National Committee’s Winter Meeting.
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“We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping,” he told party members. “We as Republicans have to accept that government number crunching – even conservative number crunching – is not the answer to our nation’s problems.”
Instead of being the “party of austerity,” Jindal said, Republicans must “boldly show what the future can look like with the free-market policies that we believe in.”
“We must compete for every single vote: the 47 percent and the 53 percent and any other combination of numbers that adds up to 100 percent,” he said, notably invoking comments 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made at a closed door fundraiser about a bloc of voters who would not consider GOP candidates.
