Republicans review identity

WASHINGTON - Having lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections, Republicans plunged Wednesday into an intense period of self-examination, blame-setting and testy debate over whether their party needs serious change or just some minor tweaks.

The fallout will help determine if the GOP might return to heights approximating the Ronald Reagan years or, as some fear, suffer even deeper losses as the nation's Democratic-leaning Hispanics increase in number.

"The party is clearly in some sort of identity crisis," said Rick Tyler, a past aide to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Hard-core conservatives, furious at President Barack Obama's re-election in the face of a weak economy, called for a wholesale shift to resolutely right positions on social and fiscal matters. Some demanded that party leaders resign.

Establishment Republicans largely shrugged off the tirades. But they split into two main camps themselves, portending potentially lengthy soul-searching, especially in Congress.

"The Republican Party is exactly right on the issues," said Terry Holt, a veteran GOP strategist with close ties to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. The party mainly needs to nominate candidates who can relate to average Americans better than multimillionaire Mitt Romney did, Holt said.

Some other Republicans, however, see bigger problems. The party must shed its "absolutism on issues like tax increases," which congressional lawmakers oppose at virtually every level, said John Ullyot, a former Republican Senate aide. "The only way the party is going to move more to the middle is when we get sick of losing," he said.

While Holt and others say the Republican Party is aligned with most Americans on big issues, Tuesday's exit polls raise doubts in some areas. Six in 10 voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the highest share saying so since the mid-1990s. Two-thirds of voters said illegal immigrants working in the United States should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.

Nearly half of all voters supported Obama's plan to raise taxes on couples' incomes above $250,000. Thirteen percent said taxes should be increased on all Americans, and 35 percent said no one should pay higher taxes.

Republican insiders, meanwhile, nervously focused on an approaching problem that could produce even bigger presidential losses in the future. The GOP relies overwhelmingly on white voters. Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing group, have bristled at Republican attacks on illegal immigration.

Republican campaign pros said the party must find a way to temper the talk about immigration without infuriating conservatives who oppose amnesty for those who entered the country illegally.

by Charles Babington - Nov. 8, 2012 Associated Press

Republicans review identity