"I think the people sent our party a message...We've got to recommit ourselves to being the party of conservative reforms." Those are the words of RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, quoted at a CS Monitor breakfast today by The Chicago Tribune's blog, The Swamp.

Here's more:

Asked why he and other party leaders had predicted victory heading into the elections, Mehlman maintained that 30 of the races they were looking at stood "within the margin of error'' in polls heading into Election Day, meaning they could have gone either way with the right effort. He noted that 19 contests were decided by vote-margins of 5,000 or fewer. [snip]

But his party's future depends on recommitting Republicans to core values of reform, he insists.

"The party of reform... to me, it means we are the party that's transforming government to face the problems we have today,'' said Mehlman, pointing to public education, with his party offering parents "more choices in education'' and to immigration. "A welcoming immigration system is consistent with everything we ought to believe in.''

Acknowledging that the Republican Party captured only 30 percent of the Hispanic vote in the midterm elections - down from the mid-40s in the 2004 presidential election, and down from 36 percent in the midterms of 2002 - he said: "It's down, and I'm not happy that it's down.''

The challenge for his party remains reaching out to minorities, and the RNC is committed to doing so, Mehlman said. "America is, every day, less of a white country,'' he said. "We rely too hard on white guys for votes.''