This was originally posted on our sister site, RedState.com
It has come to this, I’m afraid.
We need to keep our perspective.
Conservatives have won nothing. Nothing.
Ken Buck you say? Sharron Angle? Mike Lee? Pat Toomey? Marco Rubio? Joe Miller? Rand Paul? Nikki Haley?
Here, pay attention: they are all candidates.
Yes, yes — we won primaries. Contrary to popular opinion that conservatives wanted a purge of party, we instead played smartly — playing where we could win. We gave Roy Blunt a pass in Missouri. We were largely disunified and unorganized in Illinois, letting it go to Mark Kirk. I personally insisted no one beat him up on the front page here, given the near inevitability of the primary. There was no point. We stayed out of Connecticut. We went with Rob Portman in Ohio. We lost California and Indiana.
We won Colorado.
We won Nevada.
We won Alaska.
We won Kentucky.
We won Utah.
We won Florida.
We won South Carolina.
Except we really haven’t. There is a huge difference between winning a primary and winning an actually election. One gives you the name “nominee.” The other gives you the name Senator, Congressman, and Governor. It is the latter that is important.
A lot of conservatives want to go pounding their fists on their chests, declare themselves Tarzan of the Jungle, and pronounce their great victories. But we have, ultimately, won nothing.
Nothing, that is, yet. There are feuds breaking out. There are some conservatives who have decided to sit on the sidelines because their candidate did not win. There are some moderates who have decided to sit on the sidelines because their candidate did not win.
As I have said from Day One of my arrival at RedState, here we are conservative in the primary and Republican in the general election. Now is the time to mobilize and fight to take back the country from the Democrats. There is only one vehicle by which we can do that — the Republican Party.
Don’t get cocky. Don’t get overconfident. Don’t decide you’ve done all you need or want to do. Victory is ours, but we must fight for it all the way to November.
