LaTourette said the GOP needs to start acting like a national party. LaTourette: Tea party claim is 'crap'

Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette slammed the Tea Party on Thursday and said the GOP needs to start acting like a national party.

“There’s a one-word phrase we use in Ohio for that: ‘crap,’” LaTourette said on CNN’s “Starting Point,” when asked whether he bought a Tea Party leader’s line that that group is the nation’s “last best hope” to “restore America’s founding principles.”


“That’s nonsense,” LaTourette continued. He said that a number of congressional losses Tuesday underscore the dangers facing the GOP.

“The Republican Party cannot be a national party if we give up the entire East Coast of the United States,” he said, adding, “We don’t have any Republicans in New England. We don’t have Republicans in the mid-Atlantic states. We can’t continue to diss the Latino voters.”

LaTourette, who is retiring, has been critical of the polarized nature of Washington. On CNN, he said that his wife, a Democrat, had come close to voting for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but didn’t follow through because of controversial Republicans who cast the whole party in a “nutty” light, he said.

“My wife’s a Democrat, and she was so close to voting for Mitt Romney,” he said. “But then, you know, Mourdock and Akin opened their mouth, and we sent [voters] running back to the Democratic Party, because they think we’re nutty.

“We have the right message on the finances,” he continued, but added, “We have to get out of people’s lives, get out of people’s bedrooms, and we have to be a national party…or else we’re going to lose.”