“The electorate will look much different in 2012 than it did in 2010,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who was a political operative for decades before coming to Congress. “It’s going to be younger, browner, and more to the left.”

The problem for Republicans is most acute among Hispanics, a pivotal bloc of the electorate in must-have Florida and the West.

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“Republicans cannot afford to lose the Latino vote by 30%+ as they did in 2008,” read the slide headline on a 2012 polling presentation sent out last week by the GOP survey research firm Public Opinion Strategies.

Whit Ayres, a longtime GOP pollster with his own firm, said that the most discouraging piece of data for the party ahead of 2012 is the GOP’s difficulty with Hispanic voters.

“If we lose the fastest-growing, largest minority group like we lost them in 2008, it’s going to be pretty tough in places like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona,” observed Ayres.

But Ayres and other Republicans pointed out that there were also some numbers on their side – namely sustained joblessness and the sense among voters that the country is on the wrong track.

“He’s going to have to win re-election with historically high unemployment,” said Cole.

The congressman said that if Obama does win he would likely break from recent historical precedent by getting re-elected with a narrower margin than what he first received upon winning the White House.

“It’s hard to see him running as strongly in places like Indiana and Ohio,” said the Oklahoman, citing two states the president won in 2008.

But Obama won’t be running in a vacuum and even before the Republicans likely to run formally launch their campaigns, party members are grumbling about their options in the typical way: by openly pining for others to get in the race

“Jeb’s opening is now,” wrote National Review editor Rich Lowry earlier this month in a much-buzzed-about column about the former Florida governor.

Candidates aside, Republicans also worry about the mechanics of their primary election season which, without winner-take-all contests early on, may continue longer than it has in recent cycles.

“Whoever the nominee is, whether it’s me or someone else, it’s going to be a short time window,” said Huckabee. “Probably no one can capture it until late spring, early summer. If that’s the case, [that’s a] shortened window to gear up for the general election, heal up the wounds from what will be a very gruesome campaign and to restock a war chest that’ll be empty by then.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who is increasingly likely to run, said Obama was beatable simply because of his record. There is a distinction between how voters view the president personally and how they view his policies.

“Americans recognize bad policy that has yielded bad results,” Barbour said in an interview, noting the country’s skyrocketing debt under the incumbent.

But the Mississippian, a former RNC chair who has worked for decades in national politics, said that as the sitting president Obama would begin with an advantage.

“Incumbent presidents don’t lose very often, particularly if it’s a president who has taken over from the other party,” said Barbour.

Just once since 1896, he noted, has a sitting president lost his re-election after taking over from the opposite party four years earlier: Carter in 1980.

Alexander Burns contributed to this report.