Scarborough: Colin Powell 'absolutely necessary' for Republicans

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Wednesday the Republican Party had no hope of winning national elections unless they attracted moderate figures like former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"You've got to stand up to people on the fringe," he told his colleague Chris Matthews. "You know, when parties go extreme they get roundly defeated. It happened to Democrats in 1984. It happened to the Republican neo-cons in 2006. It happened in the off-year elections back in 2010. Americans thought democrats went too far to the left, and they punished them and in almost historic proportions in that election."

"But, you know, 2012, Republicans got punished because they were the party of Todd Akin instead of the party of Colin Powell," Scarborough continued. "They were the party of Richard Mourdock instead of the party of George H.W. Bush. This is a party that Colin Powell wanted nothing to do with, despite the fact that Colin Powell is absolutely necessary if you’re going to have two wings of a Republican Party that can win national elections."

The conservative MSNBC host isn't the only prominent Republican who sees ultra-conservative candidates as a major problem for the GOP. Republican strategist Karl Rove and American Crossroads president Steven Law recently launched an organization that intends to oppose extremist candidates in GOP Senate primaries.

"I don't know that Karl Rove after his performance in 2012 should be the gate keeper," Scarborough remarked. "He was inside the bubble as much as anybody else, so much so that he melted down on election night."

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