WASHINGTON (AP) — On the heels of devastating GOP losses, Sen. John McCain said “no defeat is permanent” as he called for the Republican Party to return to its common-sense conservatism — and implicitly cast himself as the one who can lead the party’s rebirth.

“We lost our principles and our majority. And there is no way to recover our majority without recovering our principles first,” the Arizona Republican said yesterday in what could set the tone for a potential presidential campaign.

On the same day he launched a presidential exploratory committee, McCain said voters felt that Republicans valued their incumbency over their beliefs on such conservative standards as limited and efficient government — and he urged a return to those tenets.

“Americans had elected us to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us.”