By MICHAEL COOPER


MIAMI - In small meetings at the homes of conservative activists and bigger ones at research groups, on blogs and at gatherings like the Republican governors’ conference in November, the questions have been the same:

Nearly 30 years after Ronald Reagan ushered in conservative ascendancy in American politics, how should the movement re-energize itself? And how can conservatives chart a path back to power after November’s Republican defeats?

Some conservatives want a return to basics, arguing that President Bush abandoned conservative principles by expanding government and driving up spending. Others draw the opposite conclusion, warning that Republicans have appealed to too narrow a base and that the party must update its focus , especially at a time when voters are thinking more about issues like jobs and health care than about abortion and gay rights.

“Everybody’s discouraged and disillusioned but also energized,”said Richard A.Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer who wants conservatives to stop supporting a party that he says has betrayed them, and to start forming grassroots groups instead.

Lee Edwards, a historian of the conservative movement at the Heritage Foundation, said that in meetings with conservative leaders since the election there was an emerging consensus that the Republicans had been hurt by drifting away from conservative principles and that religious conservatives, economic conservatives and strong-military conservatives had seemed to realize the need to unite to regain power.

“It isn’t a question of stressing economic issues or stressing social issues,”Mr.Edwards said.“What we have to do is to go back to what Ronald Reagan did and put together a coalition.”

But John Weaver, who was the original chief strategist of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign before he left during an upheaval in July 2007, strongly questioned the premise that Republicans lost this year because they were not conservative enough.“We still are a centerright country, but the gauge is closer to the center than it is to the far right,”Mr.Weaver said.“And we have got to communicate to the people who ultimately decide these elections.”

The chairman of the Florida Republican Party, James Greer, one of several likely candidates to lead the national party, called for putting less emphasis on some social issues and more on economic issues that he said could have broader appeal.

“I think we need to answer the questions that are asked by the conservatives:‘Is it still my party for family values- Is it still my party for faith-’”Mr.Greer said.“Answer those questions, answer them firmly,‘Yes it is.’But then move on. And start talking about the issues that are important to Americans: the economy, job opportunity and education.”

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, scoffed at calls for the Republicans to move left, which he said had followed Republican defeats in 1964, 1976 and 1992. And he suggested that some calls to update conservatism - by taking global warming more seriously, for instance - were essentially disguised calls to move the party to the left.

At the Republican Governors Association conference in November, there was particular worry among some conservatives that the party had wounded itself by scaring off Hispanic voters, a growing force, with the divisive rhetoric that accompanied the debate over America’s immigration laws. And there was even the suggestion that Republicans could not continue to make“Ronald Reagan”the answer to every question at a time when they are overwhelmingly losing the young voters who were children, or were not yet born, when he was president.

Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota said that Reagan was one of his heroes, and recalled being spat at by a hippie while volunteering for one of his campaigns.“But Ronald Reagan was president a long time ago,”Mr.Pawlenty said.“A lot has happened since then.
So the challenge for us is how do you take the principles from the late ‘70s and ‘80s and apply them to the circumstances and issues and opportunities of our time.”