CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Mitt Romney and his team are not eager to dwell on regrets.

But his campaign manager now says that the forceful posture taken against immigration in the Republican primary inflicted lingering damage with Latino voters in the general election.

The Romney campaign chief, Matt Rhoades, acknowledged that point during a forum here at the Harvard University Institute of Politics, where advisers to all candidates in the 2012 campaign gathered to discuss the race.

When asked directly whether Mr. Romney regretted tacking to the right on immigration to appeal to conservative primary voters, the room fell silent.

Stuart Stevens, a senior strategist to Mr. Romney, shook his head no. But after pausing for several seconds, Mr. Rhoades said, “I regret that.”



He went on to explain that the campaign, in hindsight, had been too worried about a potential threat from Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who jumped into the race to challenge Mr. Romney as the jobs-and-economy candidate. For weeks in fall 2011, Mr. Romney hammered Mr. Perry on Social Security, particularly his calling the program a “Ponzi scheme” that should be overtaken by state governments.

In retrospect,” Mr. Rhoades said, “I believe that we could have probably just beaten Governor Perry with the Social Security hit.”

One month after Election Day, advisers in both parties are still studying President Obama’s victory by an Electoral College margin of 332 to 206. One of the examinations took place last week at Harvard University, where strategists gathered for a conference that has been held after every presidential election since 1972.

The remarks were released on Monday, when organizers published a recording of the forum. The future of the Republican Party was a subtext of the discussion, including how the party can broaden its appeal to Hispanic voters, a group Mr. Romney lost by a wide margin to Mr. Obama.

A few other nuggets from the conversation included:

A low point for the Romney campaign came in September when Mr. Romney’s remarks at a May fund-raiser were disclosed, revealing his blunt suggestion that 47 percent of Americans saw themselves as victims who are dependent on the government. With reports of turmoil inside campaign headquarters in Boston, Mr. Rhoades said the candidate took the blame. “There was a lot of negativity about our campaign as a whole, but he’s a person who takes personal responsibility,” Mr. Rhoades said. “He would tell me: ‘You didn’t say 47 percent, Matt. Stuart didn’t say 47 percent. I did.’ ”

At the Obama headquarters in Chicago, advisers ranked Republican candidates. Mr. Romney was always seen as the likely Republican nominee, even as he struggled to defeat Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator. “Every Friday we rated them,” said Jim Messina, the president’s campaign manager. “Romney was always at the top.”

In February, the president eased his longstanding objection to “super PACs” and signaled to wealthy Democratic donors that he would be at deep financial disadvantage. The decision was too late, aides to Mr. Obama said. “We waited too long to jump into super PAC world,” Mr. Messina said. “When we did it, it looked like a flip-flop.”

Heading into Election Day, most advisers to the Romney campaign said they believed they would win. But not Steven J. Law, the president of the conservative group American Crossroads, who declared, “I didn’t.” He said he believed Mr. Romney would fall short of Mr. Obama, saying he “could never get over the lip” in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina.

The selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin as the Republican vice presidential candidate surprised the Obama campaign, which assumed that Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, or Senator Rob Portman of Ohio would be chosen. The decision to pick Mr. Ryan was rooted in a comfort level with Mr. Romney, aides said, not politics. “The selection of Congressman Ryan was not a political choice,” Mr. Stevens said.

Neil Newhouse, the chief pollster for Mr. Romney, said the campaign was taken aback by the composition of the electorate. He said that the “real hidden story from our side” came from the number of white men who did not vote in the election in some key states like Ohio. “When you lose, you nitpick the numbers as you go through this stuff,” Mr. Newhouse said. “The number of white men who didn’t vote in this election compared to white women compared to four years ago was extraordinary.”

The explanation from Mr. Newhouse was abruptly cut short last week after a power failure in Cambridge knocked out the lights at the Kennedy School of Government. He and other aides made their remarks while sitting in a dark room until the building was evacuated.