Pennsylvania Republicans, especially in the Philadelphia suburbs, can learn from our recent thumping that we have to capture the "vital center" if we are to win statewide. Last Tuesday, 47 percent of the voters were self-described moderates, according to exit polls.

The GOP should return to the 1964 advice of Barry Goldwater, who would be left of center by today's standards, to get the government off our backs, out of our pocketbooks and out of our bedrooms.

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won a landslide reelection in a Democratic state by moving to the center and capturing 60 percent of the independents and 58 percent who called themselves moderates. By rearranging our party's priorities, we could capture disaffected Democrats and independents and still follow the basic Republican principle, subscribed to by 54 percent of the voters, according to exit polls, that government interferes too much.

In addition to the Iraq war, where an earlier policy modification by President Bush would have changed the election's outcome, the Republican approach on key domestic issues caused the loss of both houses of Congress.

Supporting Democratic candidates on TV, actor Michael J. Fox said what millions of Americans knew to be true: Republican failures to support federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research retarded scientific studies to combat Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease and other maladies. Missouri was lost on that single issue, which cost the GOP the Senate.

The failure of a Republican Congress and White House to deal with the prospect of a $1.4 trillion Social Security deficit in 2050 was a hot topic on the 10 college campuses where I spoke in October. No wonder 61 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Democrats.

The strategy of the House of Representatives on immigration legislation backfired. There was no doubt that our borders have to be secured and amnesty has to be rejected, but it was equally obvious that Congress has to deal with guest workers and 11 million undocumented immigrants. President Bush called for comprehensive immigration reform and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce insisted that our economy needed guest workers, but the House disagreed and addressed only border security. The result was the loss of House seats where the Hispanic vote - which went 70 percent for Democrats, according to exit polls - was influential.

African Americans consistently and accurately complain about being ignored by the Democrats but 89 percent of them still voted for that party, according to exit polls, because Republican polices do not address their concerns. Our candidate for governor lost Philadelphia, which has a large African American population, 374,386 to 44,264.

A different immigration policy would have captured many Hispanic voters. Dealing with the projected deficit on Social Security would have brought many younger voters to the Republican column. Different Republican policies on embryonic stem-cell research and inner-city problems could capture more swing voters.

A return to the advice of Barry Goldwater on bedrooms and pocketbooks would still maintain key differences between the parties and allow Republicans to win by capturing the "vital center."