This morning on "This Week," Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., dismissed recent gestures by prominent members of the GOP suggesting a softening of Republican positions as simply "lipstick on a pig."

"I think all of this stuff is just surface stuff. It's like lipstick on a pig, " Ellison said. " I mean, the bottom line is, the Republicans have a core values problem, not a 'who knows who Tupac Shakur is' problem."

Ellison was responding to ABC News political analyst and contributor Nicolle Wallace, who praised Marco Rubio on the roundtable. The Florida senator is seen as a rising star in the GOP and a member of the party that could help Republicans win more Latino support. Rubio recently endorsed a bipartisan senate proposal aimed at reforming America's immigration system.

ABC

Rubio also gave an interview to BuzzFeed this week where he spoke at length about the late hip hop star Tupac's lyrics.

"He's everything we need and more. He's modern. He knows who Tupac is. He is on social media," Wallace said. "I mean, he's got the policy. He's in touch with, I think, the lives of ordinary people. And he's a very accessible guy. He talks about being a working dad and juggling his own priorities."

On the larger issue of the future of the Republican Party, Rep. Tom Cole ,R-Okla., expressed support for GOP introspection after Gov. Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 presidential campaign. He did however say "the idea that this is some existential crisis, I think, is really overdone right now."

"When you lose an election, you ought to be a little bit reflective and you ought to think back and you ought to begin to say, what do we need to do to do differently?" Cole said. "So I don't want to be stupid. But you also need to be principled and consistent in your values, and I think we are. And, you know, we'll see what happens in the next year or two. "

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