If there was one thing Republicans could agree on Wednesday night, it was renewing the party's focus on fiscal issues.
"It should trump everything else," said county prothonotary Randall Wenger in a political panel discussion hosted by the Young Republicans of Lancaster County.
The audience of about 40 at Republican headquarters believed the party needs to live up to its commitment to tighter spending and smaller government for it to have any chance of bouncing back from the beating it took in the 2008 election.
Although mentioned in passing, issues such as abortion and gay marriage took a back seat to discussion over how the party could re-brand itself and appeal to changing county demographics.
"We talked a good game," said Lancaster County Commissioner Scott Martin, but lamented that Republican politicians didn't live up to the party's standards of fiscal accountability.
The three-person panel, which consisted of Martin, Wenger and clerk of courts Ryan Aument, agreed the party betrayed its core principles during the presidency of George W. Bush.
"We lost our way the past eight years," Aument said, as the Republicans became a party of big government.
The solution to how the Republicans could rebuild themselves, however, was not so clear.
"There's no silver bullet," Wenger said.
Martin told a reporter the key to rebuilding the party — now a minority in the U.S. House and Senate and losing voters countywide — was to hold local representatives and legislators to higher standards of fiscal accountability.
The party has seen its once-commanding registration majority over the Democrats erode; Lancaster County is now about 2-1 Republican.
"It's about tightening the ship," Martin said.
A failure to use technology and appeal to younger voters also helped doom the election, argued Young Republicans Chairman Josh Parsons.
The answer could lie in increasing the Republican party's visibility on social networking Web sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Parsons conceded that Democrats used the Internet far more effectively than did Republicans in 2008.
"We have to master it," Parsons said. "In order to get young people in [the party] we need to do more of it and have a stronger presence on the Internet."
Young voters preferred Barack Obama to John McCain by 68 percent to 30 percent — the highest share of the youth vote garnered by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976.
Members at the Young Republicans meeting, and some new faces, fueled optimism among the panel.
Said Wenger: "The future is bright for the party."
The Young Republicans meet at 7:30 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month at Republican headquarters, 902 Columbia Ave.
Paul Franz is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact him at pfranz@lnpnews.com or at 295-5063. 