Two-thirds of Republicans recognize that the party needs to change in order to do better in future presidential elections, but they’re torn over what that change should be.

That’s the conclusion of a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday.

And it’s encouraging, right?Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans believe that they need to reconsider some positions, while just over a third believe that the party mainly needs to make a stronger case for its current positions.

Still good.

But that’s where things get tricky. Fifty-four percent believe that party leaders need to move in a more conservative direction, while only 40 percent believe that they need to move in a more moderate direction.

There’s the deflator. I knew this was too good to be true.

The poll specifically asked Republicans whether the party’s position was too conservative, not conservative enough or about right on five issues: gay marriage, immigration, abortion, government spending and gun policy.

In all cases except one a plurality thought that the party’s position was about right. The lone exception was government spending, on which a plurality thought that the party was not conservative enough. In fact, “not conservative enough” beat “too conservative” on every issue but gay marriage.

Pointing to the true split in the party — between the moderate and the extreme — Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party to say that the party was not conservative enough on these issues.

These Tea Party supporters were twice as likely to say that Congressional Republicans compromised too much when dealing with their Democratic counterparts, notwithstanding the fact that, as it stands, any level of compromise is incredibly hard to come by in this Congress, which is essentially broken because of Republican intransigence.

And the problem the Republicans still have but many don’t seem to recognize is that the extreme arm of the party has an outsize role in selecting a nominee, and they don’t like anyone who smells of moderation.

Of the Republicans who say that they always vote in primaries, 42 percent say that Congressional Republicans compromise too much, as opposed to 28 percent of those who say they vote in primaries “less often.”And while large majorities of Tea Party supporters have favorable opinions of possible Republican presidential candidates like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and to a lesser degree Marco Rubio, most don’t have a favorable opinion of Chris Christie. In fact, among Tea Party supporters Christie had the highest unfavorable rating of the seven Republican leaders mentioned in the poll.

But among Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party, Chris Christie is second only to Paul Ryan in favorability.

This is the perpetual Republican Party conundrum: moderate, or go harder right. And many still seem to believe that going harder right is the best way to go. They have learned nothing. They can see no other way. They are so convinced that their way is the right way, but it’s just misunderstood, not clearly explained, not persuasively advocated.

That’s what can happen in political echo chambers — faltering positions are reinforced rather than rightfully abandoned. Voices for moderation are maligned as agents of moral erosion. Giving a little feels like giving up.

It is in this environment that 15 Kentucky Tea Party groups released a letter last week blasting two national Tea Party groups for endorsing Senator Mitch McConnell, complaining of McConnell’s “Progressive Liberal voting record” and his “willingness to roll over and cede power to President Obama and the Liberals in Washington.”In what twisted, right-is-left, up-is-down world do these people live?In this world few leaders, particularly ones that could win a national election — which would require the winning of moderates and possibly the sloughing off of some conservative Democrats — would ever be sufficiently conservative to pass the purity test.

Instead of acknowledging that they have put up weak presidential nominees and had them front for extreme platforms, many Republicans believe that their problem is simply that their recent candidates have not been conservative enough.

Rick Perry, the Texas governor and failed presidential candidate, said in March:“The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideals as evidenced by the last two presidential elections.”He continued: “That’s what they think, that’s what say. That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012.”Rush Limbaugh, during an hourlong interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren this week, went even further, saying: “The Republican leadership isn’t conservative. They’re not particularly crazy about conservatives.”And lamenting what he viewed as too much compromise by Republicans, he continued: “So much of it on the surface, intellectually, doesn’t make any sense. There has to be a reason. These Republicans are not stupid. They have to know that agreeing with the Democrats on issue after issue after issue is going to equal Democrat victory after victory after victory after victory. So why are they doing it?”So long as these voices — those of the most conservative Republicans — warp nominees who emerge from primaries on the right, they are doomed to an uphill climb toward the White House.