What Republican Voters Want - NYTimes.com Republican voters have surveyed the wreckage of their party's 2008 and 2012 presidential tickets and concluded that something important must be done. In a new survey by the Pew Research Center, solid majorities of Republicans said the party needs to "address major problems" (69 percent), which would require shifting positions on some issues (59 percent). At last, you might think, they've recognized that going far out onto the right-wing Tea Party limb was a mistake. But no. Fifty-four percent said the party should become more conservative, not less. Thirty-two percent said the House Republicans" obstructionist strategy is just right, and slightly more, 35 percent, actually said the Republicans in Congress have compromised too much. It was disappointing that the poll did not ask respondents to name one of those compromises. And it gets worse. Solid majorities said the Republicans should be inflexible - or even more right wing - on a range of issues such as gay marriage, abortion, government spending, immigration and gun control. Republican primary voters in general and Tea Partiers in particular - in other words the people who pick presidential candidates - were especially adamant that the G.O.P. should take more conservative positions on all those issues. Forty-two percent of regular primary voters and 53 percent of Tea Party Republicans said their party had already compromised too much with the Democrats in Congress. Tea Partiers were more likely to say the G.O.P. is not conservative enough on the issues the poll mentioned, with a full 61 percent taking that stand on government spending. I shudder to think how much more earth they think should be scorched in slashing federal programs for the poor and working-class Americans. The Tea Party crowd - which you will not be shocked to know is older, whiter and more Evangelical than even the rest of the older, whiter and more Evangelical Republican party - loves Paul Ryan despite the 2012 loss. Eighty-one percent said they have a favorable opinion of him. I never put much stock in the glossy reports after the 2012 election about how the G.O.P. would finally try to appeal to younger voters and Hispanic voters and maybe inch back toward the center. The poll indicates that even if the party leaders wanted to go in that direction, primary voters wouldn't let them.