By Andrew CoyneAmong Republicans, the word of the day is soul-searching. As in: Republicans do some soul-searching after Romney loss. Obama win forces Republican soul-searching. Republican Party has some serious soul-searching to do. Well, perhaps they do at that.But lets not overstate matters. The Republicans very nearly won this thing. Had about 300,000 votes gone the other way in four states Florida, Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire Mitt Romney would be the president-elect today. The GOP kept control of the House, gave up but two Senate seats, and added at least one state governor. Its a loss, not a rout.All the same this was a winnable election, in a sluggish economy against a flawed incumbent. And they have only themselves to blame. Barack Obama didnt win this election: the GOP lost it. The president did not run on his record, or his platform, but simply contrasted his partys values with those of the Republicans, the better to remind his supporters of who was on their side, and which side they were on. It proved to be the right strategy but it could not have worked without a major assist from the Republicans.Simply put, you are unlikely to win an election in todays United States if you are giving away 75 per cent of the Latino vote, nearly all of the black vote, and substantial margins among women and young people. Neither are you likely to appeal to the moderate and independent voters you need if you have spent much of the previous two years showcasing the shrillest and most intemperate voices in your party.These are not matters of ideology so much as identity, on the one hand, and temperament on the other. Large numbers of voters outside the GOPs overwhelmingly white and male base simply could not imagine themselves voting for the party not so much because of what it stands for as what it is: namely, Not Them. Many other voters might be inclined to vote Republican, were it not so evidently in the grip of a bunch of yahoos.Obamas victory, then, was not accidental. It required a Herculean effort on the part of the Republicans. That the GOP came within a couple of percentage points of winning even then suggests it should not be too hard to avoid such defeats in future. All that is required is to a) reach out to voters it has gone to such great lengths to alienate until now, and b) stop behaving like yahoos.I repeat, the adjustment needed is less ideological than attitudinal. For all the emphasis on the deep divide between the parties, there is little evidence that this election turned on questions of policy. Americans seem perfectly prepared to vote for Republican ideas, provided they are presented by a reasonable and thoughtful person. They elected Bill Clinton twice, after all.No doubt Romney had his limitations as a candidate: the stiffness, the Thurston Howellisms, the serial flip-flops. And no doubt the Obama campaigns summer of hate millions of dollars in harshly negative and unusually personal attack ads reinforced those weaknesses. But the candidate was already deeply wounded by his own party, forced to soldier on through the long months of the primaries while it dallied with a succession of cranks, extremists and generally unsuitable alternatives.Romney, for his part, did his cause no good by pandering to the base so overtly. But he shouldnt have had to. The Moderate Mitt who emerged after the first televised debate in fact remained distinctly right of centre by anyones standards, championing not only Medicare reform, but a radical overhaul of the tax code. So those Republicans who are grousing that Romney lost because he was not conservative enough are as mistaken as those who will undoubtedly counsel the party to follow a more pragmatic (i.e. content-free) course.Promoted beforehand as presenting a fundamental choice about the role of government, the election did not turn out as advertised. Obamas cautious liberalism hardly makes him the standard-bearer of big government, whatever some in his party might wish. As for Romney, his message was in constant danger of being drowned out by ill-judged outbursts from members of his party. What cost him the election was less his own cautious conservatism than his partys yahooism.Its one thing to oppose raising tax rates: many economists do. Its another to oppose any measure that happens to raise more revenues, even by closing the most egregious tax loopholes. Its one thing to be pro-life: many women are. Its quite another for middle-aged men to be musing publicly about the necessity or otherwise of abortions in cases of legitimate rape.But it wont be enough for the grown-ups in the party to take charge. The Republicans must accommodate themselves to the changing face of America not only in its demographic makeup, as in the rapid growth of the Latino population, but in social attitudes. Perhaps the most significant results Tuesday night were the ballot initiatives in several states approving gay marriage and marijuana liberalization. Increasingly, it appears, even conservative Americans are inclined to live and let live. Republicans will have to adapt their conservatism to this new diversity, embracing what a commentator online called cosmopolitan conservatism.Whoever was elected Tuesday, and whoever is elected in future, they will confront the same basic dilemma: how to pay for the costs of an aging population, with whatever combination of entitlement reform and increased revenues. Those debates will be hard-fought, if over relatively narrow ground. For Republicans to win those battles, they will have to take the sneer out of their voice. They will have to stop equating principle with extremism, compromise with capitulation, sensible conservatism with know-nothing yahooism. Andrew Coyne is a PostMedia News columnist.
