In Northeast, Lost in a Blue Wave

"They got their voice in the '90s and started scorning us as RINOs (Republicans in name only) and funding the primary opponents that we had," Chafee said in a telephone interview. "The right-wing talk show hosts and the Ann Coulters and that ilk didn't understand that for the Republican Party to win, we had to have fiscal responsibility.

"I consider myself an old green-eyeshade Republican, watching the books, looking out for the environment, not getting involved in these foreign quagmires, looking out for our constitutional protections," Chafee added. He said the party's emphasis on social issues, and a strategy of using wedge politics to energize the base, was alienating voters in the Northeast.

"How many more seats does it take before it sinks in?" Chafee said.

Some Republican officials say it is imperative for the party to overcome its difficulties in the Northeast. "In order for Republicans to have a shot at winning back the majority in the House, we must find a way to effectively compete in the Northeast," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Republicans this year were competing in a hugely hostile environment, so perhaps many of this year's losses were inevitable. President Bush's dismal approval ratings are the lowest here of any region in the country. The recession here has hit hard, and energy prices are a major concern. The Iraq war remains deeply unpopular in the Northeast.

In addition, new voter registrations this year overwhelmingly favored the Democrats.

In the case of Shays, "he was swimming against an extremely strong current in Connecticut," said Samuel Best, director of the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut. "He was caught in this crosswind, plus the demographic of his district and the state going more Democratic."

Shays lost the election largely in the district's three biggest cities, Stamford, Norwalk and here in Bridgeport, which also has the state's largest percentage of African American residents and where enthusiasm for Barack Obama can be measured by the large Obama signs in storefronts and restaurants. The increased participation of black voters and young, first-time voters here has pushed Connecticut decidedly toward the Democrats.

"Republicans are going to find an uphill battle," Best said. "I think we can see a leftward shift in Connecticut, and it's one that people don't think will shift back anytime soon."

Some northeastern Republicans believe the party made a mistake by not figuring out a way to speak to young voters. "We have failed to reach out to new voters, pure and simple," said Thomas Ognibene, a Republican candidate for mayor of New York in 2005. "Not only have we failed to articulate a message, we don't even know how to reach out to them. Even I'm out of touch with it -- Facebook, the Internet."

"Everybody says the Republican Party is dead," Ognibene said. "But we weren't killed by the Democrats. The Republican Party committed suicide. We didn't articulate our plan and reach out to a new voter base."

Former congressman Guy Molinari, the longtime Staten Island Republican chief, said that after Tuesday's results, "in certain parts of the country, absolutely, [the party] is in danger of disappearing." He said the job now is to begin searching for new leaders, find ways to speak to new groups of voters and launch a voter registration drive to try to blunt the Democrats' increasing edge.

"It's going to take a long time in the rebuilding process," Molinari said.

He and others said they were hoping Rudy Giuliani makes a run for New York governor in 2010, as a first step toward rebuilding the Republican organization in New York. "He would be our savior, absolutely," he said.