Conservative Republicans at a major conference in Washington this week are promoting a message in the wake of the GOP’s recent election losses: “don’t blame us.”

They argued Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that if their party had stuck to conservative principles, the November election outcomes might have been different. Republicans in 2006 lost control of the House and in 2008, lost the White House and additional seats in both the House and Senate.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain , appeared on BBC News’ HARDtalk Jan. 15 and suggested conservatives were to blame for the Arizona senator’s presidential loss.

“When you have the Rush Limbaughs of the world who, you know, literally almost feed the nativist attitude toward immigration reform, what do you think the Hispanic voter, the Latino voter is gonna remember? They’re gonna remember the attacks, not the efforts by people like John McCain to try and reform,” Davis said.

But Republicans at the conference Thursday argued that the 2008 election was a referendum on moderates.

“There is no bigger reason we lost this election than our own hypocrisy,” Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis told an audience gathered to hear a presentation billed as, “The Key to Victory? Listen to Conservatives.” Anuzis said the blame for election losses rests squarely on conservatives who were elected to office “and then they went to Washington and lost their way.”

“We need to stand on our principles and start acting like Republicans again,” Anuzis added.

Many conservative voters in the 2008 presidential race rallied behind Republican former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, an ordained Baptist minister. McCain held a reputation as a “maverick” in the Senate and faced criticism from conservatives on issues such as immigration and stem cell research.

Few expected Huckabee to be competitive at the outset of his campaign, but, boosted by conservatives, Huckabee remained relevant up until his concession to McCain in March 2008 after primary losses in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Huckabee on Thursday identified possible finger-pointing between social and fiscal conservatives and argued that both “wings” of the party are necessary “to fly.” Additionally, he defended his own wing.

“We didn’t lose because of social conservatives,” he said. “We lost because we wanted somehow to be the party that forgot what we stood for.”

Exit polls on Nov. 4 showed that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberal, 44 percent as moderate and 34 percent as conservative. A total of 78 percent of conservatives voted for McCain but 20 percent voted for Barack Obama .

Republican former Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia (1995-2009), head of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, believes strongly that conservatives will not reach electoral success on their own. “You don’t get the majority by being conservative,” Davis told CQ politics in a phone interview. “They have to win elections.”