After the Connecticut Republican Party failed to win a single major office in 2010 - governor, all of the statewide offices, U.S. senator and all five seats in the House of Representatives - it replaced its state chairman, Chris Healy, with the party's treasurer, Jerry Labriola.

With its new chairman, and no governor's race in a presidential year, the party did no better in 2012, losing elections for all five U.S. House seats again and the other Senate seat.

Then, in 2014, with Chairman Labriola serving his second term, there was another sweep, with the Democrats again winning the governorship, all the other statewide offices and the five seats in the U.S. House. Republicans did pick up some seats in the state House and Senate, but Democrats retain dominance there, too.

So now it appears to be Mr. Labriola's time to go. According to news reports, there are four leading candidates for the thankless job of replacing Mr. Labriola, whose term doesn't end until June. A petition circulated right after Election Day calling for the chairman's immediate ouster went nowhere, getting the signatures of four of the 72 state central committee members, but the matter is expected to be introduced, if not settled, at a meeting on Dec. 10.

The four candidates are state Sen. Joseph Markley, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti, businessman and congressional candidate Mark Greenberg and J.R. Romano, a party professional with some election success on his record.

Mr. Romano helped elect Republican Erin Stewart mayor of Democratic New Britain, and nearly elected Trumbull First Selectman Timothy Herbst state treasurer. Mr. Herbst now makes a strong case for Mr. Romano, saying the party needs a chair like the Democrats' Nancy DiNardo, who energetically runs her party full time.

Sen. Markley makes a rather peculiar case against the need for a full-time chairman, telling The Hartford Courant that Jimmy Carter "put in more hours than Ronald Reagan but Reagan was doing what needed to be done." Sen. Markley and Mr. Greenberg have ties to the party's right-leaning, tea party faction while Mr. Lauretti is more mainstream and Mr. Romano is not aligned with any faction or ideology.

It's pretty clear the Connecticut Republican Party now needs a tactician more than an ideologue to run things. The party also needs a chairman or chairwoman - though, interestingly, no female candidates for the job have emerged - who can encourage strong, experienced candidates to run for major offices. The next party leader needs to call a halt to the reliance on wealthy diletantes, whose attraction is their ability to raise large amounts of money, often their own. The depressing four races for governor by Tom Foley and senator by Linda McMahon should convince the party's loyalists that there is a better way.

The next chairman has to get an early start on 2016, not only a presidential year, with the usual larger voter turnout, but also another chance to take a Senate seat for the first time in more than 30 years.

What the party needs most in its next chairman is a willingness to face the fact that he will be heading a party that is securely locked in third place in the affection of Connecticut voters. There are roughly 800,000 unaffiliated voters, 700,000 registered Democrats and a puny, 400,000 Republicans in the state.

That's close to 2 million voters, yet only just over a million of them voted in 2014 and 2010 while more than 1.5 million turned out for the presidential election in 2012. These are numbers both parties should keep in mind as they continue to foolishly keep their primary elections closed and choose candidates designed to appeal to the shrinking party bases.

This losing streak is as bad for the citizens of Connecticut as it is for the Republican Party.

We need a viable two-party system in Connecticut and there are opportunities for the Republicans in 2016. After electing a Democratic or a Republican president twice, Americans are usually ready for a change and the next election will provide one of those times for a change opportunities. Republicans have won in Connecticut before and the party has a base of support to work from in its rural towns, where Republicans selectmen dominate. Of course, fewer people live in those places.

The new chairman and the party should look to the 2016 election as an opportunity to build on the somewhat promising legislative gain of 11 seats in 2014 and try to get back a congressional seat or maybe even two. It may not be able to defeat the up to now unbeatable Sen. Richard Blumenthal and end his decades-long winning streak, but having a strong candidate for the office, who can attract moderate voters, would be a start.