Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce during President George W. Bush's administration, made no attempt to hide his frustration with the Republican Party during his appearance on the Univision program "Al Punto". Gutierrez claimed that the party's extremism was the reason for Mitt Romney's resounding defeat last week.
"It is a party that requires that a candidate has to say atrocious things in order to be nominated and go to the extreme right", Gutierrez told host Jorge Ramos. "And then they have to move to the center for the national election. They're making the candidates contradict themselves, and they are frightening the people."
Gutierrez continued: "The Republican Party has to change. There has to be a new Republican Party, and it has to acknowledge that the country has changed so much, and that it is not going to go back to what it used to be, and that the essence of this country in the twenty-first century is diversity …. Hispanic Republicans, Anglo-Saxon Republicans, Asian Republicans [need to] form a new kid of coalition … [and we have to] demand once and for all a comprehensive immigration reform that permits persons who are undocumented to have a path to legalization … . There are many Republicans who are tired of defending a party and then hear anti-immigrant rhetoric, xenophobic rhetoric, crazy rhetoric."