Another positive for Republicans is that if a campaign as flawed and a candidate as plain as Mitt Romney could come that close to beating an incumbent Obama, then after eight years of a Democrat, a candidate like say...Marco Rubio...could begin 2016 with 206 electoral votes and then go up against someone who in all likelihood will not be a minority and go from there.
How is there anything positive to take out of this last election as a Republican? The GOP lost to a weak incumbent with an approval rating scratching 50 and the unemployment rate at 8%. Romney's failure with Latinos was so devastating that the party was racing to the middle on immigration reform almost immediately after the election.
