Gov. Linda Lingle, one of the most moderate Republicans on the national political scene, says she has ideas on how her increasingly conservative party can again ascend to power in Washington.

But the two-term Hawai'i governor, who campaigned across the country for the GOP presidential ticket, said in a post-election interview with The Associated Press that she won't devote any of her time and energy to actively press decision-makers in the national GOP for change.

Lingle said the national GOP needs to become less ideologically rigid and attract more ethnic minorities and women into its fold if it is going to recover after big losses in Tuesday's election.

"If someone looks up and they don't see anybody who looks like them in the party hierarchy or power structure, by nature they are not going to feel attracted there," she said.

Still, Lingle said she won't join in internal party discussions of the GOP's future.

"It's not something I push myself to be a part of," Lingle said. "I have two years on my term and my focus has always been Hawai'i."

She also suggested that the Hawai'i GOP should look to those Republican legislators who won comfortable victories Tuesday for ideas on increasing its meager presence in Hawai'i. The new 76-member Legislature will include only eight Republicans, down from 11 before the 2008 elections.

In the wake of Democrat Barack Obama's strong victory on Tuesday, Republicans are beginning to internally discuss where the party goes from here.

Conservatives, meeting in Virginia, yesterday took the first step, and it was not with a fond heart toward moderates.

"The moderate wing of the Republican Party is dead," L. Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, told The New York Times after the meeting of 20 prominent conservatives.

Lingle, a former state party chairwoman, describes herself as a "progressive Republican." A fiscal conservative, she is pro-choice but has shied away from highlighting abortion or other red-button social issues, such as gay marriage or gun control.

She has sought to reduce the state's reliance on fossil fuels.

She also was a vocal supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war.

Lingle pushed herself onto the national stage this year by speaking at the GOP national convention in September and during two weeks of campaigning for Republican presidential nominee John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin in battleground states.

McCain holds more conservative views than Lingle on most social issues, and she framed her support more on economic and tax matters.

Lingle, in her second and final term, did not face voters this year. But losing along with McCain were at least two prominent moderate Republicans: U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon and Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, the last Republican House member from New England.

Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, in an article posted Wednesday on the Web site of the group she co-founded, the Republican Leadership Council, urged "social centrists" to "decide if this is a party worth fighting for.

"Can the principles we have stood for in the RLC reclaim the party or do we just let the far right take the name and we go elsewhere," Whitman asked.

Lingle, in the telephone interview Thursday evening, said the GOP should not marginalize those who hold positions on important issues that differ from the majority of its members.

"I don't think (Republicans) should feel they have to have a set of — a litmus test — of issues," she said. The party "should be a place where anyone can feel comfortable."

Yet Tony Perkins, one of the conservatives who met yesterday, told The New York Times that candidates who are "squishy on conservative principles" would no longer be tolerated.

Lingle said there are plenty of moderate voices in the GOP to press the party-building ideas with which she agrees.

"There are people very much like me within the party, so I think my point of view would get discussed," she said, naming Whitman, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Lingle rejected calls for a general housecleaning of the state party. Conservative blogger Eric Ryan of 'Ewa Beach wrote this week that all state party leaders should resign.

"I just take it all with a grain of salt when it's someone who really hasn't experienced what they're talking about," Lingle said. "Someone who sits in their room and blogs, I'm not certain someone like that really has much to offer."