If Mr. Blackwell or Mr. Steele wins the chairmanship, it will still be difficult for Republicans to compete against a Democratic Party that made its way into the history books in November. Mr. Obama will be sworn in just a week before the 168 members of the committee are to gather here to choose the chairman.

Even Republicans describe this as their bleakest period since Watergate. Yet the party put another Republican in the White House just six years after Richard M. Nixon left office in disgrace in 1974.

“There were other valleys we’ve been in that were worse than this,” Mr. Duncan said. “I’m optimistic. I think we can come back from this. We are a center-right country. Only 20 percent of the people consider themselves liberal. That gives us a huge opportunity. We have to get our message refined. We’ll be back.”

Still, the problems the party faces now are laid out in often-agonizing detail by the six candidates as they appeal for the committee members’ votes.

“We fell behind in investment in technology," said Saul Anuzis, the Michigan chairman and a candidate for party chairman. "Clearly fund-raising is going to be a major challenge. I think we have a lot of challenges.”

The party has to choose from a field of candidates barely known outside of Washington. To date, no candidate has shown signs of being the kind of powerful public speaker that party members are yearning for to counter the opposition. Nor has any candidate presented a new message or vision to keep pace with the Democrats, Republicans acknowledge.

“I haven’t heard a vision,” said Joe Gaylord, a longtime Republican strategist who was the chief strategist for Newt Gingrich when Republicans seized control of the House in 1994. “If we do not become a future-oriented, solutions-oriented Republican Party, we are going to be in wilderness for a long, long time.”