There's one problem for the Republicans in Massachusetts that's not considered in this story: fear of the national Republican party. Specifically, fear of the right wing of the Republican party.

Scott Brown might have lost in any case, but certainly an important factor was fear that Republicans would gain control of the Senate, and also that even though Brown had cast some "bipartisan" votes, he was still too tightly connected to ultra-conservatism.

The anti-Warren ads from Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were extreme and counterproductive in my opinion. You can't claim the Warren is the "worst enemy" of business and have any credibility at all.

I don't think it's going to make a lot of difference what kind of Republican candidates run in Massachusetts, as long as I and many other voters fear what the right wing could do to this state.

I love this state and I don't want big changes.

Voters want leaders that solve problems with creative, equitable solutions. Harping on abortion and gays has become so threadbare for most folks they can't stand it, most especially from a group that claims to embrace the Individual. That's the big disconnect for most Massachusetts voters.

The Republican party will go nowhere nationally or locally as long as it maintains a Conservative, Christian, Right-to-life, social agenda.  When did the Moral Majority take over the party?  When I was young, the Republicans were fiscal conservatives.  Now it's all about social issues.  Atkins and the rest make us sound like a bunch or right-wing nutcases.  We are alienating ourselves from mainstream voters and may someday force a third party.  The bottom line is that no one cares what someone's opinion on abortion is.  It's none of their, or the government's, business.

“Trying to out-Democrat the Democrats is no way to define and strengthen Massachusetts Republicanism,” wrote Dave Kopacz, president of the Massachusetts Republican Assembly......So our of touch!!

There is 'no home' for conservative leaning-moderates in Massachusetts politics (or nationally for that matter)......Republican candidates are forced to move their positions to the far right during the primaries in order to gain acceptance from the religious right and then they are forced to 'tack' to the middle in order to have a prayer of being elected........a proven formula for failure.

How about a party that accepts the fact that the abortion issue is 'settled law' and let's move on?.........How about a party that doesn't try to convince us that raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans will cause ruin for the economy?......anyone that believes that this party has 'a big tent' is fooling themselves.

No one is suggesting that Republicans should try to 'out Democrat the Democrats' but there is some evidence that control of the Republican Party MUST be rested from the religious right!!

Republicans lost the Massachusetts legislature in the 1950s. Since the 1970s they have not had the numbers to demand roll calls. Now they have lost all other New England legislatures except the New Hampshire state senate, all governerships except Maine, all U.S. House seats and all but one U.S. Senate seat in each of New Hampshire and Maine. Republican state organizations in New England have become politically irrelevant. They cannot win offices by running reactionaries, and they cannot win as shadow Democrats. They no longer serve a purpose and should disband. Libertarians and Greens are not winning offices yet but have coherent programs and will keep the political party systems active.

First, it was definitely all about Brown.  I will grant that Tisei was somewhat more of a victim of nationl issues, but it was all about Scott.

Second, if you really want to get the Gop vote out, get rid of those republicans who divide the party into real republicans and RINOs.  The concept that even thoughi have fought for this country as have my ancestors back to the revolutionary war, but that i am not as good a republican as others, revolts me and made me unenroll in disgust on leaving the polls in 2000.  Stop polarizing the party and the country and pethaps people will listen to your message again.  Even Eisenhower and Goldwater would have been thrown under the bus by today's GOP.  That is your problem.

First, it was definitely all about Brown.  I will grant that Tisei was somewhat more of a victim of nationl issues, but it was all about Scott.

Second, if you really want to get the Gop vote out, get rid of those republicans who divide the party into real republicans and RINOs.  The concept that even thoughi have fought for this country as have my ancestors back to the revolutionary war, but that i am not as good a republican as others, revolts me and made me unenroll in disgust on leaving the polls in 2000.  Stop polarizing the party and the country and pethaps people will listen to your message again.  Even Eisenhower and Goldwater would have been thrown under the bus by today's GOP.  That is your problem.

This is their idea for expanding the future?  "embracing more stringent conservatism and focusing on social issues — to better distinguish their candidates from Democrats."  Social conservatism is not conservatism, it is "big brother" at its worst.  Conservatives, true conservatives operate from a simple tenent as expressed by Barry Goldwater,

"I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state.  The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process."

From there we go to the concept of "fiscal conservative" from which most of the "conservative" tendencies in this country are visibly seen.  American's are "fiscal conservatives" not "social conservatives" and until the Party recognizes this it is doomed to failure.

I think the Massachusetts GOP should focus on representing the commonwealth in some way that is classically Republican.  Above all they should demand thoughtful leaders who can explain their ideas in an organized and clear manner.

This is not the national party nor is it the candidates they have been fielding. 

Return to the GOP of Leverett Saltonstall and Ed Brook, both Republicans I admire.   Take leadership in the national party rather than following it over the cliff.  If they do that, Massachusetts can be an incubator for a Republican party that presents a rational option for the Democratic party.

As someone who campaigned for Elizabeth Warren, who knocked on thousands of doors, I can tell you that the National Party, the State Party, Crossroads actually helped Elizabeth win through their looney tunes, unfounded nonsense.   Independent voters reacted badly to the vitriol and Republicans who actually believed it were crippled for persuading anyone of anything.

The extreme players on the nationl stage do affect the local candidates likes Brown and Tisei -- It troubled me greatly but I voted for Warren --I could not risk the senate going Republican-- potential chairs lik Imhof are very scary

Grateful for this article, Globe. Reading about the plan to make the Republican Party more socially conservative, I found I can still LOL. We are entering the existential zone -- life, at least the political part, is absurd.

"Internicine battles."  That's intelligentsia-speak for 'Republicans eat their young.'  I think it will be a tough sell to tell Latinos, women, young people etc that "We are the Republican Party.  We now recognize and care about you because we can't win elections without you.  Before this election, who knew?"  Their only hope is that the 47% forget where they came from and which party helped them.  I know this will not happen in the short term, but voters are fickle, "What have you done for me lately?" and forgetful and impressionable.  Democrats have to continue their outreach programs and constantly remind them of Social Security, Affordable Health Care, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, Aid to Children, GI Bill, Women's Health, Supreme Court decisions, FEMA, Immigration,  Unemployment benefits and other social programs that help people survive during bad time and good.  Funny, Republicans really care for humans before they are conceived and in the womb.  After birth......not so much.

Some Tisei supporters are blaming the Libertarian on the ballot for costing Tisei the election and siphoning off 11,000 votes. 

More likely, it was the far right Catholic/Evangelicals, who dominate the Tea Party movement, who sent more votes the way of the pro-life, Catholic Tierney than the Libertarian ever did. It was ideology  that tipped the scale.
The Libertarian focused on both candidates' failure to address the economy - a legitimate issue. 

it will look a lot different after the next two years of more scandals and failed Dem policies are taken into account.

Firms aready laying off or reducing hours becuase of Ocare

Obama administration has posted 165 new regulations and notifications on its reguations.gov website. In the past 90 days, it has posted 6,125 regulations and notices – an average of 68 a day.

Sspending continues to rocket and taxes are increased across the board   - and do nothing\

More class, gender warfare

Bad foreign ploicy..

Here are a couple of names of former Massachusetts Republicans (some mentioned by other commenters already) that, if around today, could probably win voters' support:  Frank Sargent, Frank Volpe, Ed Brooke, Bill Weld.  All of them moderate Republicans who didn't dismiss government and say it didn't work; they believed that government could work, to the betterment of its citizens, and that it could do so efficiently and cost-effectively.  The Mass GOP should concentrate on finding candidates like them for the future, but that may be a tall order.  Oh, and don't try to tell me that Scott Brown was like those names.  Scott Brown was always a very weak candidate, and a poor representative for Massachusetts. 

This debate has always been ongoing in the state Republican party. Bill Weld and Paul Cellucci won in '90 in spite of Ray Shamie and the party heirarchy, which was throwing in its lot with Steve Pierce. Pierce had no chance of getting elected statewide. In fact, he got smoked by Weld in the Republican primary 60-40. Fiscally conservative, socially moderate to liberal is the way to go if you actually want to get elected here, boyos and goils.

Republicans have to take their party back from the nit-wits. Brown and Tisei both lost, in big part, due to the national Republican agenda. Which obviously did not fly here in a progressive state. A legitimate national third party of moderates would draw many votes from both Dems and Reps. Let the social conservatives have their party. They can have their hard core 20%. Marginalize them and the whole country moves forward in a responsible manner. How can social cons be all for the individual then do everything they can to try to legislate against the individual based on their hatred of the individual that is not in lock step with their thinking? Just because they can yell the loudest doesn't mean you have to listen to their nonsense.

As long as these Massachusetts Republicans are taking money from the National Republican party and the Right Wingnuts I won't vote for them because they will owe the the Right Win lunatics for the money they took.

People can talk about Brown being non partisan but when the big votes came up he was with the National leadership......He voted against extending unemployment benefits to Middle Class Americans during a very bad economic time and he said his reasoning was it wasn't funded......BUT he also voted against Middle Class Americans getting a tax break unless it included Millionaires and Billionaires.....where did he find the finding to do that ?

Scott Brown was not middle of the road when it came to women's issues. He co-sponsored the Blunt ammendment for goodness sakes - this was a head on strike against women. Just because it didn't pass doesn't mean we didn't notice. And just because they smile and don't look like their on the far right doesn't mean they aren't. We just can't trust a Republican not to vote with their Party no matter what they say they believe.

This lazy, analysis-free article by a "progressive" reporter conforms perfectly to the Globe political genre of writing to preconceived stereotypes, in this instance: socially moderate Republicans … good! conservative Republicans … bad! As for Jane Swift and Elizabeth Childs, what alternative universes do they inhabit, besides those of the Berkshires and Brookline? They cavil about conservative social positions, but neither could name a single Massachusetts Republican in 2012 who lost a race because of his conservative stance on a social issue. I can name plenty of Republicans, however, who lost big after making the maladroit (and unnecessary) decision to talk (and not very intelligently) about the Dreaded Social Issues from the perspective of the socially moderate. There were too many moments, for example, when poor Scott Brown sounded like the senator from Planned Parenthood, and when Richard Tisei appeared to be competing for the Congressional seat from Key West … or from Mikanos. Both of these candidates lost while going out of their way to showcase moderate positions on certain social issues, an exercise that needn't have been attempted at all. As the saying goes, "it’s the economy, stupid". We are in, and are going to remain in, a harrowing economic stretch for quite some time, and the question of whether a Republican candidate is socially moderate or conservative now matters far less than whether he is competent and honest.

So Obama wins by 2.7% (popular vote) and the country has REJECTED the GOP. Who has the most Governors? State Legislators? Who controls the House? Why did the GOP do so well in the last Congressional race?

according to the July 2012 BLS data, seven of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates have Republican governors, led by North Dakota, with 3.0%.:

A quick check of the governors' party affiliations shows 29 states with GOP governors, 20 states with Democratic governors, and one state headed by an independent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' preliminary, seasonally adjusted data for July 2012, 7.84% of the civilian labor in the 29 states with Republican governors were unemployed (6,680,400 out of 85,155,600).

The same data set shows that 8.77% of the 20 states with Democratic governors were unemployed (6,032,500 out of 68,792,500). The national unemployment rate was 8.3%. http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/29/politics/pol-fact-check-gop-governors/index.html

Interesting article for those who like information

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/12/obama_wins_by_going_negative_and_turning_out_base_116132.html

Every re-elected president since Andrew Jackson has won with an increased popular vote percentage. Barack Obama didn't. He won 53 percent to 46 percent in 2008. His numbers as I write are 50 percent to 48 percent over Mitt Romney. That could go up to 51 percent to 48 percent when California finishes its count, which took five weeks in 2008

Scott Brown voted against The Lilly Ledbetter Act (equal pay for equal work) and cosponsored the Blunt Amendment (women had to have their employers permission for contraceptive health care or any other health car that the employer chose to refuse). The intrusion of Republicans into everyone's bedrooms is conservatism overstepping propriority. Scott Brown lost the women's vote by 18 points. The Tea Party / Republicans went too far.

if you want to win elections you need to offer free stuff, that's the new America, what can I get. sad but true, just look at our welfare budget 750 billion, it was 350 billion in 2008.