Leader in GOP's reboot calls Obama a 'socialist'

Leading Republicans called on their party to adopt a more inclusive tone Monday — but in doing so one used some controversial rhetoric to describe President Obama, calling him a "socialist."

Republican National Committeeman Henry Barbour, a top GOP strategist and one of the authors of the Republican National Committee's detailed plan to help the party reboot, used the term about the president during a conversation with The Hill about the GOP's need to improve its primary process.

"If we want to focus on a handful of issues and try to impact some primaries and lose the generals, that's really not going to effect public policy. We all want to make America strong economically and militarily and every other way but you can't do that if you're not in office," Barbour told The Hill. "We've got a socialist in office right now — how's that working for us?"

He defended the language when asked if that was one of the terms the GOP should be avoiding.

"I don't care. I mean, look, I think he's a socialist. I'm not saying he doesn't love our country," said Barbour, the nephew of former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. "No, I don't care."

Much of the report he helped write focuses on the party's need to appeal to younger voters, women and minorities — and soften its rhetoric in order to do so.

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