Newt's advice to GOP: Engage the Daily Show, The View

Human Events has an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus from Newt Gingrich, wherein he lays out his (lengthy) plan for the GOP after its dismal performance in the election.

In the 5,000-plus word essay, Gingrich says for the Republican Party to compete with Democrats politically, it has to copy them:

Start with what the Democrats have been doing right. Build a library of must reads starting with books like [David] Plouffe’s The Audacity to Win, [New York Times columnist Matt] Bai’s The Argument:Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, and Witwer and Schrager’s The BluePrint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and why Republicans Everywhere should care). A small team should be assigned to pull together every book, article, and interview which helps explain what the Democrats have been doing and to organize them into topics for analytical access by every interested Republican. A working group should also issue a report on lessons to be learned after thoroughly  reviewing all this material. Someone should become the chief researcher and archivist on our opponents’ systems and activities.

And the other part-- Gingrich says Republicans have to wade outside of the conservative media bubble and into potentially treacherous waters...: "Infotainment is a world Democrats enjoy and use and Republicans either disdain or fear, and as a consequence avoid," he says. "The View, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Leno, Letterman, ESPN, Nickelodeon, MTV, and on and on, represent patterns of communications Republicans often disdain, seldom appear on and as a consequence are simply invisible to their audiences. ... We need a report on the appearances of Democrats and Republicans in these areas in 2011 and 2012 and then we need a strategy for Republican engagement."

Recall that in the infamous "47 percent" tape, Mitt Romney explained why he avoids some of these shows, saying "Letterman hates me" and The View is "high-risk."

I'm told by someone at Human Events that Gingrich's letter was unsolicited by Priebus; that Gingrich simply felt compelled to write it.