“I think they’re having a much harder time coming to grips with it even than we did,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “If they’re this disappointed now when they’re still in the majority, wait until January.”…

“It’s painful and very hard to accept,” said former Representative Vic Fazio of California, then a member of the Democratic leadership. Now a Washington lobbyist, he has been fielding calls from defeated Democratic members asking, “What do I do?”…

What aggravates them all the more is the belief that Mr. Obama’s administration is partly responsible for their predicament. Republicans felt the same way about President Bush after their 2006 defeat, which stemmed largely from public unhappiness over the Iraq war.

Still, “we hung tight with the president” and supported the troop increase, Mr. Cole recalled. The policy merits aside, he added, Republicans concluded that “it doesn’t help for us to fight with the president.”