Ideology Keeps GOP From Reaching Out
By E. J. Dionne

As Republicans begin debating the future of the party, it is worth noting that some in the party are already trying to rewrite the past. In recent weeks, several members of the more conservative wing of the GOP have stated that the reason the party failed so miserably this election is because it turned its back on fiscal discipline by turning toward the political center. Perhaps conservative stalwart L.

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 Victor Davis Hanson

Conservatives have already in the three weeks after the election come up with three competing explanations — and remedies — for their congressional defeats and the victory of the relatively unknown Barack Obama.
Post-election voting patterns and statistical data can be interpreted in various ways to support any of the following three exegeses, which I understand as being roughly the following:

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 Mort Kondracke

How can the Republican Party rebound? The first step would be to quit letting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham set its agenda.
A second step would be for Congressional Republicans to actually try to help President-elect Barack Obama succeed in addressing the country's dire problems -- offering better ideas where appropriate and opposing just when necessary, not reflexively.

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.