WASHINGTON – Rep. Paul Ryan said Saturday that Republicans need to stick together and pick their fights during President Obama’s second term, rejecting some White House proposals outright and trying to infuse others with conservative principles.

In a speech to conservatives, the Republican 2012 vice presidential nominee said Obama would try to divide Republicans but urged them to avoid internal squabbles after a second straight presidential loss.

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U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is shown arriving at the ceremonial swearing-in for President Obama at the Capitol during the presidential inauguration Monday. The Associated Press

“We can’t get rattled. We won’t play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united,” Ryan said at the National Review Institute’s weekend conference on the future of conservatism. “We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas.”

The Wisconsin congressman outlined a pragmatic approach for a party dealing with last November’s election defeats and trying to determine whether to oppose Obama’s agenda at every turn or shape his proposals with conservative principles.

How the party moves forward was a major theme of the three-day meeting of conservative activists, who also heard from Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Bob McDonnell of Virginia were scheduled to address the conference Sunday.

The theme also dominated the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting, which ended Friday in Charlotte, N.C.

With a surging minority population altering the electorate, Republican leaders have discussed the need to attract more women and Hispanics while at the same time standing firm on the values that unite conservatives. Republicans said despite the losses, the party could return to power by projecting optimism and attracting new voters with a message of economic opportunity.

Walker, a star among conservatives after surviving a union-led campaign to recall him from office, said government needed “brown-bag common sense,” a reference to his frugal practice of packing his own lunch of ham-and-cheese sandwiches every day. Qualities like optimism, staying relevant to voters and showing courage in tackling big problems would be rewarded at the voting booth, he said.

“We’ve got to learn to be more optimistic. We’ve got to learn to give a viable alternative to the voters,” Walker said.

Cruz said Republicans needed to use upcoming fights over the budget and the deficit as “leverage points” to tame long-term spending and debt. Projecting an upbeat outlook, he said Obama’s policies would drive many voters to Republicans just as many Americans turned to Ronald Reagan after the economic turmoil of the late 1970s.

Looking ahead, Ryan rejected the notion that Republicans were “in the wilderness,” noting that the party controls the House and most statehouses. But he said Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney meant that Republicans would need to recalibrate their approach to deal with the new political realities.

“If we want to promote conservatism, we’ll need to use every tool at our disposal,” Ryan said. “Sometimes, we will have to reject the president’s proposals — that time may come more than once. And sometimes we’ll have to make them better.” He said Republicans should have two main goals for the next four years, namely “to mitigate bad policies” and “to advance good policy wherever we can.”

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