Mitt Romney is blaming his loss in the presidential election on "Obamacare" and other "gifts" he says President Obama handed out to African Americans, Hispanics and other core supporters, according to news reports Wednesday.

The defeated Republican candidate told donors in a conference call that Obama targeted those demographics, along with young voters and women, through programs such as health-care reform and "amnesty" for children of illegal immigrants, according to articles posted online by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Both papers appeared to have listened to the call or obtained at least partial transcripts.

 

In explaining his overwhelming electoral college defeat last week, Romney said Obama followed what he called the "old playbook" of seeking votes from specific interest groups, "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people," the New York Times said. "In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups," he added, according to the paper.

 

The question of how to appeal to the nation's changing demographics is sensitive for Republicans, especially because Romney lost the non-white vote so badly to Obama, the nation's first African American president.

 

Two leading Republican governors and potential presidential candidates, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, immediately denounced Romney's remarks.

 

"We have got to stop dividing American voters. . . . I absolutely reject that notion, that description. . . . We're fighting for 100 percent of the vote,'' Jindal said at a news conference at a Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas.