Why Republicans have to do better

It’s clear from this month’s election in Massachusetts that Americans want options other than the Democratic Party.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that the Republicans continue to make bone-headed plays like this one.

South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer, was caught on tape comparing poor people to stray animals.

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman,” Bauer says. “But she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why?”

A woman in the audience interrupts, saying, “Because they’ll never leave you?”

But Bauer’s point is far more distasteful:

“Because they breed!” he says. “You are facilitating the problem. If you give an animal or person ample food supply, they will reproduce. Especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.”

His point seems to be that by denying adequate nutrition to poor families you will convince them to have fewer babies.

He actually argues that school lunch programs are bad because schools with the highest percentage of kids receiving free lunches have low test scores.

As I’ve written here before, Americans — including myself — are interested in and open-minded about conservative ideas.

Free market solutions to endemic poverty are clearly an important part of the overall strategy.

But this kind of thinking is, bluntly, barbaric.

Bauer suggests in his speech that anyone condemning this kind of talk is blinded by political correctness.

He’s wrong. Making sure America’s children have at least one decent meal every day isn’t politically correct, it’s morally correct.

From New York state to the halls of Congress, voters want a revitalized GOP, with fresh ideas for tackling our problems.

A good next step is for national Republican leaders to repudiate Bauer’s ugliness.