On Sunday’s This Week, several members of the show’s political panel took some cheap shots at the GOP and CNN contributor LZ Granderson argued that the 2016 GOP presidential contenders look like an “intolerant field.”
The anti-GOP discussion started with political commentator Cokie Roberts proclaiming that the GOP may have 19 potential presidential candidates, but they “don’t appeal to diverse America.”
After Matthew Dowd, former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, defended the Republican’s chances of winning the White House in 2016, liberal commentator LZ Granderson eagerly trashed the “intolerant” GOP field:
The truth of the matter is is that for a lot of millennials, young people, diverse America as you said, people haven't brought this issue up so far today, but the fact of the matter is, is that the Republican field still looks like an intolerant field.
And we saw that during what was going on with Indiana and this religious right bill that’s really just an anti-gay
bill. Young Americans are going to walk into the polls, walk into the booth and ask themselves, am I going to vote for discrimination or am I not going to vote for discrimination. And that is one of the reasons why the GOP continues to struggle to win the general election because they keep holding on to this image and politics of discrimination and exclusion and not inclusion.
Cokie Roberts piled on and insisted that the GOP was all about exclusion when it came to immigration. Matthew Dowd attempted to defend the Republican Party, but ended up sounding like the rest of the liberals on the panel and accused them of having a problem with “intolerance”:
But I have said I think the face of the Republican Party has been problematic and I describe them as a Mad Men party in a Modern Family world. That's a huge problem. Come on, this is an opportunity, and in my view, you can't say Marco Rubio doesn't look like and doesn't talk like much of the face of the new America now.
He’s one of the youngest candidates in the field. He's Latino. He has at least been presenting a new generation argument. They have a lot of problems on intolerance and they have a lot of problems on judging the rest of America that they need to solve.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos
April 19, 2015
COKIE ROBERTS: But somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose between those [Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio] two and then that will be that. The big problem they have, even though there are 19 of them and they're diverse as you say, is they don't appeal to diverse America. And so what you’ve got is a Democratic candidate, with whatever problems she has still getting the Hispanic vote, the African-American vote and the youth vote and now the white female vote. Which most Democrats don't get. So it's a big problem for the Republicans.
MARTHA RADDATZ: But, you know, going after the young voters, and you talk about that, being female, the voters don't seem to really care, I think only 12% say electing the first female president makes them more inclined to vote for Clinton.
MATTHEW DOWD: Well, I think, I mean, Hillary has all her problems that she has the most of which is it feels like yesterday. But I thin the Republicans understand that this is probably the best opportunity they're going to have in a long time to capture the White House.
But I think there is no Republican right now that can coalesce the Republican Party. Now the Republican Party basically is divided almost equally into four parts: establishment, Tea Party, evangelical conservatives and libertarians and there’s nobody right now who can coalesce that. Which is why I think, the next person that's’s going to get in this race, John Kasich is going to get in this race in the next three weeks. There probably will be two more people that get in—
RADDATZ: He said last night, “ask the party faithful to hold off on committing to a candidate while he seeks guidance from God.”
DOWD: The difficulty in the whole thing though is everybody seems to be focused on tactics including Hillary Clinton and nobody has presented in my view, Republican or Hillary Clinton, a vision for the future of what they want to see happen in America and the federal government. And until that happens, this thing is going to be totally fluid.
RADDATZ: LZ, what did you learn watching the Republicans. If you can keep track. There were 19 out there, Ana. 19.
ANA NAVARRO: It was so much fun. It was, like, you know, like an every four years political event.
RADDATZ: Did it look like a lot of fun to you LZ?
LZ GRANDERSON: It didn't look like a lot of fun and I’m really happy to hear that Ana had a good time, that she thought it was all diverse and things like that.
NAVARRO: I did.
ROBERTS: She had scotch.
GRANDERSON: She had scotch. Maybe that’s why she said what she said. The truth of the matter is is that for a lot of millennials, young people, diverse America as you said, people haven't brought this issue up so far today, but the fact of the matter is, is that the Republican field still looks like an intolerant field.
ROBERTS: Right.
GRANDERSON: And we saw that during what was going on with Indiana and this religious right bill that’s really just an anti-gay bill. Young Americans are going to walk into the polls, walk into the booth and ask themselves, am I going to vote for discrimination or am I not going to vote for discrimination. And that is one of the reasons why the GOP continues to struggle to win the general election because they keep holding on to this image and politics of discrimination and exclusion and not inclusion.
ROBERTS: Particularly on immigration. And that is an issue, where you know, and I understand all of the arguments that Hispanics really should be Republicans because of values and all of that. But immigration is absolutely an entry-level --
DOWD: And I'll let Ana continue. But I have said I think the face of the Republican Party has been problematic and I describe them as a Mad Men party in a Modern Family world. That's a huge problem. Come on, this is an opportunity, and in my view, you can't say Marco Rubio doesn't look like and doesn't talk like much of the face of the new America now. He’s one of the youngest candidates in the field. He's Latino.
He has at least been presenting a new generation argument. They have a lot of problems on intolerance and they have a lot of problems on judging the rest of America that they need to solve. But it’s not any different in my view than what they're going to be presented on the Democratic side. Younger voters are disillusioned by the whole thing.
