Romney at CPAC: Learn from Republican Governors

Particularly in states that Romney lost

It was his first speech since he conceded on election night, an address to GOP activists who never fully embraced him to begin with.

And in it, Mitt Romney acknowledged the obvious.

"As someone who just lost the last election, I'm probably not the best person to chart the course for the next election," Romney said at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday.

Instead, the failed 2012 GOP nominee urged the thousands of activists in the room to learn from Republican governors – specifically those in states he lost to President Barack Obama. The 15-minute speech by the dispatched GOP standard-bearer came as the party is still licking its wounds from his stinging loss, and grappling with how to reverse its fortunes in 2014 and 2016.