Better wake up and smell the change, GOP. It's here.

I was listening to several political pundits this morning who were saying that this election contained no mandate for the President and the Democrats and none for the Republican Party as far as change is needed.

I disagree.

In a time when the country faces unemployment of almost 8% and a divided political landscape in Washington, with an expensive war still raging on, and a political hot potatoes of healthcare, immigration reform, and economic recovery, as well as automatic kick-ins of huge tax increases and a growing national debt, if the Republicans can’t take the White House and both houses of the legislative branch under these conditions, then I fear their agenda – their vision for America was much too narrow.

And that is what the American people said last night.

No other party, no other sitting President could have or would have won with those clouds hanging over their heads. But President Obama did, because his vision of America is far wider than that of his GOP foes.

One young black voter summed it up well for me, “The last four years have not been great. Far from it. But the President has a better vision of where we are headed than the other guy.”  I think that is true of their two parties, as well.

Look at the faces at a Democratic event. White, black, brown, Asian, young and old. It is a cross section of America.  At a Republican event, mostly white.  And the GOP leadership –old white men. It has to change if the vision of the GOP is going to change.

America is diverse. It is diverse in population, in religion, in economics, in philosophy. It is diverse in gender and in many other areas that tap into the chords played when creating laws. The Democrats have kept up with this. The Republicans, by the narrow view of America they inherited from the Tea Party, have not.

It is time for the GOP to jettison Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, and the extreme-right wing led by Rush, Hannity, Palin and Beck.  It is time to find new conservative leadership – like Jeb Bush, who understands that we are no longer living in 1954. We have to move on.

And it is time for both parties to compromise.  To listen and to find solutions for you and me.  It is time to put America first and leave the Adelsons and Trumps behind. This country belongs to its citizens and the politicians elected by those citizens needs to find solutions to make our country, strong, safe and inclusive for us all.  Not just for White Christians. For us all.

If the GOP can’t do that, it will soon cease to exist. And if you dig into the numbers from last night, it is well on the way of so doing. Let us hope for our country, it finds a way to turn the slide around. We need two parties. But we need common sense, first.

Come on GOP, get your head out of the sand and look around. We need you. But we need you to represent America, not just the Tea Party.

One last thought:  It is time to repeal Citizen United.  The American voter just sent it packing at the polling booth.  The Congress and or the Supreme Court should revisit it. $200 billion spent trying to buy an election. Ridiculous.  Think how many college scholarships that would have bought or vaccinations that would have covered or textbooks or teachers’ salaries or roads and bridges it would have provided.

America has just told both parties, you can’t buy an election.  Now let’s make it the law of the land. One person-one vote. No corporate super PAC bull shit.