Did you hear the joke about how the GOP isn't a Bible-thumping, bigoted party?

Charles Murray of the conservative American Enterprise Institute plays dumb:

[S]omething has happened to define conservatism in the minds of Asians as deeply unattractive, despite all the reasons that should naturally lead them to vote for a party that is identified with liberty, opportunity to get ahead, and economic growth. I propose that the explanation is simple. Those are not the themes that define the Republican Party in the public mind. Republicans are seen by Asians'as they are by Latinos, blacks, and some large proportion of whites'as the party of Bible-thumping, anti-gay, anti-abortion creationists. Factually, that's ludicrously inaccurate. In the public mind, except among Republicans, that image is taken for reality.

How can conservatives fix their electoral problems if they can't even properly diagnose the symptoms? Go tell deeply Democratic Silicon Valley, or deeply Democratic NYC, or deeply Democratic Research Triangle in North Carolina, or deeply Democratic Seattle that those national centers of economic growth and entrepreneurship are somehow incompatible with liberal values.

It's the opposite, in fact'those bastions of economic development and job creation are deeply Democratic because they've realized that government is a partner in economic development (from education to infrastructure), and that tolerance allows you to draw from the most creative and talented individuals in (literally) the world.

More below the fold.