Stunned Republicans try to regroup after election
By James Rosen | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Another brutal election night convinced Republicans that their party needs to change, and change fast.
Now, Republican leaders and activists across the country must agree on change they can believe in.
That won't be easy.
Within hours of election returns that expanded Democratic congressional majorities and delivered a historic presidential victory to Barack Obama, Republicans began searching for a new way forward.
Just as quickly, a split emerged between Republican loyalists advocating a purer form of conservative ideology and those urging a less-dogmatic flexibility.
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the head of the most conservative faction of Senate Republicans, said the Democratic election gains vindicated his hard-edged call for a return to the Reaganite roots of limited government and low taxes.
"We have got to clean up, reform and rebuild before we can ask the American people to trust us again," DeMint said. "This election reflects a failure of Republicans to keep their conservative promises."
DeMint derided the financial bailout package pushed by President Bush and passed by Congress last month as "a trillion-dollar bust." He urged Republicans to abandon "the Democrat-lite strategy of higher spending and bigger government."
Other Republicans, however, said the party must stop looking backward to Ronald Reagan, start closing the technology gap the Obama campaign exposed and broaden its appeal to younger and more diverse voters.
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