After long years of fomenting hate and distrust of Hispanics as a political strategy, and following their recent failure to prevent them from voting, Republicans have decided that they actually just want to be pals. Heck, some of their best friends are Latino, or at least half Latino. And while you might think that there’s little common ground between the angry, divisive social conservatives and one of the groups they’ve traditionally victimized, Gary Bauer believes he’s found some: Intolerance.

This week, on CNN’s State of the Union, Bauer was part of a panel discussing the causes of Mitt Romney’s failure to defeat Barack Obama. Carlos Gutierrez, former Secretary of Commerce and head of Romney’s ‘Hispanic Outreach Committee,’ stated:

“I would lay the blame squarely on the far-right wing of the Republican Party.” Regarding the Latino vote, he added, “They were scared of the anti-immigration talk. They were scared of xenophobes. It’s almost as if we’re living in the past.”