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The morning after the 2012 election, The Wall Street Journals front page carried this summary of the political landscape: A campaign year that began with great hope for Republicans.instead ended Tuesday night with the GOP in a cloud of gloom.

It wasnt just that Democratic President Barack Obama had won re-election. It was that he won even though his job approval had been stuck below 50% for months, and the unemployment rate had hovered around 8% for most of the year. He won relatively easily, holding intact the coalition of young, female and minority voters that first put him in the White House. A presidential campaign that once looked very winnable for the GOP had gone awry.

Many Republicans also believed they had blown a chance to reclaim control of the Senate, and blamed tea party activists who took control of the nominating process in some states and produced candidates who were easily caricatured as extremists. The partys most-energized activists, the party establishment felt, had undermined its fortunes.

Republicans had maintained control of the House. Even there, though, they had lost the national popular vote in House races to the Democrats, 48% to 47%. Only favorable mapping of congressional districts saved House control, small solace at a time when the GOP seemed to have had a legitimate chance to win the House, Senate and White House at once.

In the elections aftermath, the party wasnt in agreement on what the problem was. Some thought that, because Republican nominee Mitt Romney had lost despite winning more white votes than any GOP candidate since the 1980s, the outcome was a sign that the party needed to broaden its coalition to include more young and minority voters. Others urged a recommitment to conservative principles that would energize the partys existing base.

Such disappointments and disagreements can set a party into a bout of soul-searching. Thats exactly what happened to the Republicans, who embarked on perhaps the most public period of introspection by either party since Democrats tried to regroup after Richard Nixon destroyed George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election.

Get the rest of this story, and a collection of The Wall Street Journals coverage of the Republican Partys effort to reclaim both houses of Congress, in the free e-book: The Right Way? Republicans Rethink, Reload for 2014.

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Republicans Rethink, Reload: Download the Free WSJ e-book