CNN's Candy Crowley: Common Perception Of GOP Is 'White Guys Who Want To Protect Big Oil'

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On CNN's State of the Union today, host Candy Crowley talked with Newt Gingrich in some depth about the current state of the Republican party. Gingrich defended the GOP from claims that it is not diverse enough, pointing to people who help make the party more racially and ideologically diverse. Crowley told Gingrich during the interview that a common perception of Republicans is that they're just a 'conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect big oil.'

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Crowley brought up an op-ed written by Arnold Schwarzenegger that essentially goes after Republicans for being too ideologically rigid and argues that a bigger tent would be a good thing for the GOP. Crowley pointed out to Gingrich a common perception people have about Republicans.

'Most people do look at Republicans and go, 'they're a conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect big oil.' And now you're even hearing Republicans saying, 'it's not big enough, we have to open up the tent door.''

To be fair, Schwarzenegger never actually brought up race in his op-ed, just ideological purity. Gingrich pointed to Republicans like Allen West and Marco Rubio to rebut the 'white guys' claim. Crowley did try to get Gingrich to admit that the GOP is not as diverse as the Democrats, but Gingrich noted that ideologically speaking, the Democrats are not necessarily that diverse of a party. Gingrich said that any party that has both Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum in it is clearly diverse in opinion and ideology.

Watch the video below, courtesy

h/t Newsbusters

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