The Democrats just won during tough economic times. More younger voters enter the voting pool every day while older voters get older and pass away. The racial demographics of the country continue to shift. If the Republicans allow the Tea Party faction to bully them into fielding more hard-line and/or religious candidates, I think the party will continue to have trouble gaining a majority vote on the national level. After all, it's not as though they can point to individuals such as Palin, Akin, and Mourdock and say, look, we have some great successes with voters by going this direction.

Look at Romney, even. He had to be one candidate during the primaries to appeal to the far-right faction, and a different candidate during the election. That tells you right there that the priorities of the far-right faction are not believed to be the sort of thing that will get you elected on a national stage. Even just the need to play to them during the primary sets a candidate up for easy attacks from the other side during the general election. The Republicans need to get away from the far-right social policies to something a little more reasonable, and focus instead on their economic policies, which have traditionally (as far as I know) been their strongest selling point to the nation as a whole, regardless of whether or not that's always been based on reality. They need to get the Tea Party out of their spotlight, or find some way to work with them that doesn't involve fielding their candidates in important races and sucking up to them during the primary.

I don't think Romney will be the one they'll turn to for any of that. He lost to the loser in 2008 and lost to the winner this year. The Republicans will be looking to new voices to bring their message to the general public, and they'll need someone more dynamic than Romney. But I sincerely hope they go a more moderate direction, and don't decide that they need to be more hard-line and far-right in order to succeed. And don't just go moderate to win an election and then start dragging the party back to the right again. A growing majority of Americans, it seems clear, prefer something a little closer to the center. Go with that, and you can be part of the solution in terms of bridging the divide between partisans, rather than continuing to be part of the problem (and no, not the only part of it). Stop trying to get into a fight over everything, try to work together, appeal to the people in a forthright and honest manner, avoid having to say one thing to your base and another thing to the public in general, and maybe they can get back to work for the American people as a whole. The nation could probably use them and the large amount of support they still command in the tough times ahead.