To fully understand the  importance of centrist Republican candidates in the 2008 elections, it is  important to take a look at the results of this year’s hard fought  Republican primaries and see how these candidates performed in the general  election.  It is in primaries,  after all, where the voters must choose the candidate that best represents  their own positions on the issues, the District at large, and the chances  for victory in November.  Their performance in the fall is, therefore,  a good indication of the types of Republicans

By Ron Brownstein

As George W. Bush's presidency winds down, the Republican Party's greatest problem is that it doesn't appear to be reaching much of anybody who isn't already watching Fox News. Bush leaves behind a party that looks less like a coalition than a clubhouse.

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Republicans are feuding in the wake of the November election. But they are not descending into civil war. That would be too tidy. What is unfolding instead is an overlapping series of Republican civil wars, each with its own theme.

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Calm down -- and start building a bigger tent.
That's the bottom-line message Tom Ridge has for hyperventilating Republicans sorting through the wreckage of their defeat at the polls on Nov. 4.

By Thomas Fitzgerald
Inquirer Staff Writer

Looking at the ruby-red splotch showing shrunken Republican strength on county-level national maps of presidential returns, many party leaders are fretting over what went wrong.
Debate is raging over how to position the party to begin a comeback, and several would-be saviors - and potential presidential candidates - were trying out their moves last week at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Miami.

by Robert F. Bukaty, Associated Press

As Congressional Republicans lick their political wounds and try to figure out how to bounce back in 2010 and beyond, they might want to consult with Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Peter T. King.

The GOP's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

by Charlie Cook

The Charleston Gazette

GOP strategist Karl Rove once foresaw a "permanent Republican majority" in America. The party's burgeoning base encompassed the affluent elite - plus white fundamentalists mobilized by "God, guns and gays" - plus Dixie whites swayed by President Nixon's "Southern strategy" of subtle appeals to racism - and the like.

By Christine Todd Whitman and Robert M. Bostock
The Washington Post

Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America."