Artur Davis: GOP won’t make gains with blacks, should focus on Latinos and blue collars

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s defeat, former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, one of the president’s most famous detractors, stressed the Republican Party’s need to expand its appeal among Latinos and white working-class voters.

In an post-election interview, the four-term former Democratic representative — who seconded the official nomination of Barack Obama in 2008 and went on to speak at the 2012 Republican National Convention — told The Daily Caller that Romney’s single-minded focus on the economy was a big factor in his loss on Election Day.

“The problem with the message that was focused exclusively on the economy is that economic numbers change,” he said. “And you saw that, over the course of the campaign, it was not uncommon back in January and February for Romney and other Republicans to describe the economy as the worst economy that we had had in — fill in the blank, some would say a generation, some would say since the depression. As the year progressed, even though the rate of job growth was tepid by historic standards, you saw measurable movement in consumer confidence over the course of this year.”