Even as he acknowledged that Republicans should have a discussion about the future of the party, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Sunday that the notion the GOP faces an “existential crisis” is “overdone.”
“We didn’t do badly in the election,” Cole said in a roundtable discussion on ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “The president won with less than he was elected by in [2008]. … We held the House, we have 30 governors. So the idea that this is some existential crisis, I think, is really overdone right now.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) disagreed, saying on the same program that “Republicans have a core values problem.”
While he suggested that the GOP problems have been overblown, Cole said that when “you lose an election, you ought to be a little bit reflective,” and that the current conversation among leading GOP figures about the future of the party is “a really good debate” for the party to have.