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.

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.

To win Pa., it must appeal to moderates.

By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist

If retail politicking alone determined the election outcome in Pennsylvania, McCain-Palin would have won in a landslide. Speaking on MSNBC election night, Gov. Rendell joked that the GOP ticket had spent so much time in the state that he was thinking of assessing them with a state income tax.

by The Patriot-News
Saturday November 08, 2008, 11:59 PM

Barack Obama won the Keystone State on his way to the White House. We'll see if his victory is a win for Pennsylvania.

After a losing presidential campaign, the candidate quickly (and often cruelly) is painted as an object lesson in what not to do — but that should not happen in 2008.

BARACK OBAMA threw a wild party last night and the Republicans woke up this morning with a vicious hangover and concerns about their bedmates.

Economic conservatives and culture warriors, two GOP factions long in an uneasy alliance, now must decide to part ways or push forward as a political minority in search of redemption.