“Romney’s theory isn’t just wrong, it’s pernicious,” wrote Daily Caller conservative columnist Matt Lewis. “Here’s hoping he finally rides off into the political sunset.” [...]
Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist who helmed Hispanic outreach for John McCain in 2008 and worked for Jon Huntsman in 2012, was also critical of Romney through the campaign for his failure to engage minority communities. She took to her Twitter feed after “gifts” to tie the remarks to his broader shortcomings as a candidate.
“Livid at Romney saying Obama won b/c offered minorities ‘gifts,”’ she wrote. “As if he didn’t alienate Hispanics enuf while running! Look in mirror, Mitt.”
David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and longtime critic of the party’s lurch to the right, held up Romney’s latest comments as emblematic of his failed campaign.
“Mitt Romney was very wrong to see 2012 as a referendum on ‘stuff,’” he wrote in a blog post. “It was a referendum on the question, which candidate would do a better job promoting prosperity and creating jobs. That was the referendum that Romney and the Republican party lost. We lost both because voters did not believe in the job-creating magic of upper-income tax cuts - and because voters were unpersuaded that the GOP even cared that much about job creation, as opposed to wealth preservation.”
The problem is, none of these people has any real power inside the party and will merely be shouted down by the conservative entertainment complex. Most of what I've seen and heard from the usual suspects indicates that most of the conservative base agrees with Romney and probably wishes he had been more explicit about his views during the campaign.