Note to GOP: It's the rest of the country, stupid.

Republican governors are gathered in Miami this week for the annual Republican Governors Association meeting. According to this story on Morning Edition of WBEZ it sounds like they are really thinking hard about how to rebuild their party and make a comeback. Their insights are telling as to just how out of touch the party has been all along.

From Louisiana's Bobby Jindal:

"When the Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal conservatism, when we start defending spending that we would have rightfully criticized on the other side — whether it's earmarks or growth in discretionary spending or new programs that we never would have tolerated if the other side had proposed it — then clearly, I would argue that we've lost our way, we've lost the reason that we stand as fiscal conservatives."

Maybe having Governor Sarah Palin on the 2008 ticket as a fiscal conservative when really she asked for more government money per person than any other state in the form of the dreaded earmarks was not such a good way to get this message across. I mean, you can call her a fiscal conservative all you like, her record says otherwise. Unless you count all that money she saved the taxpayers by having rape victims in the state of Alaska pay for their own rape kits-ok, ok their insurance paid for the kits. Seeing as Alaska has one of the highest rape counts in the country that's a lot of dough Sarah saved. Go Sarah!

And I think this observation by Republican consultant and pollster Frank Luntz is telling:

Young people increasingly communicate and get their information over the internet. The Obama campaign understood that and compiled a list of 10 million names and e-mail addresses.

"It makes him and his supporters the most powerful special interest group in all of America," Luntz said of the president-elect. "And 3 million of those people have donated to the campaign. We've never had that situation where so many people are so active and so engaged, and they can be reached by the stroke of a key."

So American voters are now a 'special interest' group? Good to know! And yeah, that internet thingy- it's quite a unifier. Maybe the term 'world wide web' should have clued you in about 10-15 years ago.

And here's an epiphany from Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman:

That paradigm shift is the narrative Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman says Republicans must embrace. Otherwise, he says, a party that has trouble reaching Hispanics, women, and African-Americans is doomed to permanent minority status.

"And if we're not able to identify the changing demographic in this country and the needs of that changing demographic in terms of the issues that really matter — education and health care and quality of life and jobs — then we're going to lose and we're going to keep losing big time," Huntsman said.

Um, ya think?

Well you can also hear it here straight from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

"[The Republican party has] a deficit with women, we have a deficit with Hispanics, we have a deficit with African Americans, we have a deficit with people of modest incomes and I think the best thing that we can do as a party is reach out to "Sam's Club voters" — folks who are just focused on bread-and-butter issues..."

Note to Pawlenty- if you're still set on finding nicknames for certain demographics like "Sam's Club voters" after the whole "Joe the Plumber" and "Joe six pack" garbage you still don't get it.