WASHINGTON — Republicans can no longer rely on superior campaigning and must instead offer American voters “bold” and “innovative” ideas if they are to retake Congress in 2008, two GOP leaders told party officials at the start of their annual winter meeting yesterday.

The outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee, Kenneth Mehlman, and the House minority leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, each urged committee members gathered at the Grand Hyatt Hotel to learn from mistakes over the last two years as they regroup from defeat in the midterm elections.

Yet while Messrs. Boehner and Mehlman cited a number of reasons why Republicans lost —among them a lack of new ideas and several corruption scandals — neither made direct mention of one issue that some say contributed more than anything to the Democratic victory: Iraq.

Echoing a Democratic strategy in 2006, Mr. Boehner pushed Republicans to expand their party’s reach to regions that have recently voted blue, such as the Northeast and the upper Midwest.

He stressed the need for new proposals to change welfare, entitlement programs, and advance energy independence — domestic issues where the GOP could find common ground with Democrats.

Having a better get-out-the-vote strategy, which helped the GOP in 2004, was not enough, he said. “We cannot rely solely on the mechanics of a campaign,” Mr. Boehner said.

He called for bipartisanship in fighting the war on terror, saying GOP leaders should “look for allies across the political spectrum” and naming Senator Lieberman and even Mayor Koch as Democrats committed to combating the “Islamic fascist ideology.”

But Mr. Mehlman also did not cite Iraq, which is now dividing some Republican lawmakers who are joining Democrats in opposing President Bush’s plan for a troop increase.

“I was trying to talk more generally and thematically,” he said after the speech. He said Iraq did play a role in the Republican defeat in that “it’s been more difficult than people expected.”

While Mr. Mehlman said he personally supports the president’s plan, he downplayed the importance of Republican party unity on the proposal.

“I think everybody has to make his or her own decisions as to where they are on the issue,” he said.

A political analyst who has consulted for Democrats in the past, Tobe Berkovitz, said Republican leaders had to examine the party’s failures while also keeping up morale.

“The quandary that they’re in is that, on the one hand, they need a little reality therapy for the Republican Party,” Mr. Berkovitz, who is now the interim dean of Boston University’s College of Communication, said. “On the other hand, they can’t denigrate the party and the strategy and what it stands for.”

Messrs. Boehner and Mehlman also made no specific mention of the 2008 Republican presidential field, in which more than a half dozen hopefuls are expected to run for the party nomination. Neither has endorsed a candidate.

The committee’s membership yesterday unanimously voted to approve Minneapolis-St. Paul as the site of the party’s convention in 2008. New York had been among four finalists after holding the convention in 2004.

Today, the committee is expected to elect Senator Martinez of Florida as its general chairman and its current treasurer, Robert “Mike” Duncan of Kentucky, as the national chairman, overseeing day-to-day operations.

However, the vote is not likely to be unanimous, as a few committee members have voiced opposition to Mr. Martinez because of his moderate stance on immigration. A committee member of Texas, Bill Crocker, said that his state’s three members would likely vote against Mr. Martinez but that he was making “no concerted effort” to block his election.