The Republican National Committee is reviewing the party’s deficiencies, particularly in technology and grass-roots organizing, that contributed to Mitt Romney’s sound defeat last year. The excuses and grievances that several top Republicans offered up after the election have been supplanted by pledges to strengthen the party.

“We need to get people organized and learn from what Obama did,” said Mike Duncan, a former national party chairman who now represents Kentucky on the committee. “We’ve got to reverse engineer what they did and leapfrog to the next cycle.”…

There was more discussion about the challenges facing Republicans than the solutions. But in interviews, Republican officials from across the country said a new tone is needed, and they called on the party to take cues from its 30 governors rather than become consumed by Republicans’ differences in Washington…

“The tone does have to change,” said Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina, who called for “a tone of respecting the other side’s opinion.” He said Republicans also should not bow to all viewpoints inside the party, declaring, “When you try to appease everyone, you satisfy no one.”