By Naftali Bendavid
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party underscores the clout of Club For Growth, a conservative group that targets Republicans it brands insufficiently committed to low taxes and small government.
The move also has inflamed a debate within the party: Are the group's tactics good or bad for Republicans?

In his 28 years in the Senate, Arlen Specter has been accused of many things. Some of his Republican colleagues grouse in private that he is sanctimonious and unreliable. A Pennsylvania moderate in a party dominated by conservatives, Specter votes with Democrats so often that the GOP once threatened to deny him his Judiciary Committee chairmanship. Meanwhile, Democrats complain he's a fair-weather friend who makes speeches about breaking with his party—but then abandons them when it comes time to vote.

By Tom Ferrick

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.

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.

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.

Posted on Thu, Nov. 6, 2008
By Tom Infield
Inquirer Staff Writer
 
No offense to anyone in the rest of Pennsylvania, but it was always about Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Sen. John McCain knew it. That was why he and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, popped up in Wallingford and Media and Lafayette Hill and Pipersville and Villanova - and on and on.

11/5/2008, 4:03 p.m. EST
By PETER JACKSON
The Associated Press        

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Is Pennsylvania still a swing state?

When the state went for Barack Obama on Tuesday, playing a key role in Obama's stunning victory, it made him the fifth Democrat in a row to carry Pennsylvania in a presidential election.