Thanks to everyone who came out in Hoboken last night, and thanks to the Hoboken Republicans for having me.

As always, a spirited discussion. One trend in these discussions — it seems to happen over and over and over again, in any crowd — is for two arguments to emerge: 1) We weren’t pure enough; 2) We weren’t centrist enough.

Of course, those who want the party to move in a Palin-esque direction choose argument 1. Those who favored, say, Giuliani or another “moderate” choose argument 2.

Neither is right.

Argument 1 is especially wrong-headed, I think. Whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats, someone is always making this argument. After all, how many liberal Democrats argue that if their party had only nominated Howard Dean in 2004, they would have kicked George Dubya’s ass? Quite a number, from what I’ve seen over the years. Meanwhile, plenty of conservative Republicans this year believe that our only mistake was not putting Sarah Palin at the top of the ticket. But I’ve never seen any evidence that there’s a majority constituency for social conservatism plus fiscal conservatism. Nor is there a majority constituency for economic liberalism plus social liberalism.

Elections, for the most part, are won in the center — despite the Rove theory that everything comes down to the base.

But that doesn’t mean that whoever is most centrist automatically wins, either. Winning an election, it turns out, is a complicated thing. You need to be far enough toward the center to be broadly palatable; you have to actually stand for something to have any base; you need a candidate who can put one foot in front of the other, as opposed to in his mouth. (Or, you can get really lucky and run against a ridiculously bad opponent.)

In other words, there are no easy answers. It’s not that we need Palin. It’s not that we just have a communications problem. And it’s not just that we need to move to the center. Chances are, we’re going to need to reinvent the Republican platform and message for a new era. And we may not, for years, have a candidate capable of out-communicating Obama.

The facts may be depressing. But the facts is the facts.