WASHINGTON — Republicans who just four years ago boasted of nearing "permanent majority rule" now watch a dynamic leader move into the White House at the helm of a resurgent Democratic Party with new footholds in longtime Republican bastions.

For Republican activists across the country, Barack Obama's inauguration as the first black president produces dread, bewilderment and grudging admiration.

"I'm in a deep depression," said Josephine Schmidt, a mother of three and a small-business owner in Atascadero, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in California's Central Valley.

"Obama is going to lead this country on a path we've never seen before, the path of socialism," Schmidt said. "It's going to take years and years for us to recover, if we ever do."

Schmidt and her husband, Donald, whose company makes vanilla extract, already are laying off workers in anticipation of the tax increases, health-care mandates and burdensome regulations that they're certain Obama will enact.

In Florida, where Obama became the first Democrat to win more than half the presidential vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the prognosis is less grim.

"I felt that Obama just did not have enough experience, but he's surprised me," said Jeffrey Gordon, a lifelong Republican retiree in Coral Springs, north of Miami. "I've been by and large impressed by him."

He and other Republicans like Obama's Cabinet picks — especially Hillary Clinton as secretary of state — and they're pleased by the Illinois Democrat's pledge to wrap $300 billion in tax cuts into his economic stimulus plan.

"He's inheriting a horrific environment," Gordon said. "He's got a rough two years ahead of him, but so far, without him even having taken the oath, I give him high marks."

In Ohio, another red state that turned blue for Obama, Josh Keezer is struck by the president-elect's energy and sense of command.

"He's not even president yet, but he's been all over the place," said Keezer, who lives outside Toledo and teaches English to immigrants. "He's been at the White House, and he's met with Congress. He's building his experience now. He's about the best nominee the Democrats have had in quite a few years. Hopefully, his learning curve won't be as big as I thought it would be."

Obama, 47, defeated Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Nov. 4 by 53-46 percent. Obama carried nine states that President George W. Bush won in 2004, while McCain failed to turn any states that had gone for Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Obama's emphatic victory has left Republicans searching for answers.

"It's not the easiest thing in the world right now to be a Republican," former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, running to lead the national party, said in a debate Jan. 5. "Republicans are scratching their heads and saying, 'Who are we and what do we stand for?' "

During the National Press Club debate, all six candidates for Republican National Committee chairman agreed that their party must become more tolerant of different viewpoints. Yet none of them strayed from core Republican stances against abortion, taxes and gun controls, and for school choice and a robust national defense.

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