How to win elections?
Get more votes than the other guys.
A more important question:
How to win elections and have it matter:
Strictly vet your candidates on core non-negotiable principles, hold them perpetually accountable to those principles, and to We the People, then get more votes than the other guys.
It's one thing to vet them and another to flaunt those principles when it only harms the inability to win elections.
This is one strategy of the left we have to imitate. They had a long term agenda going back a decade or more with issues like gun grabbing, gay marriage, etc., but kept a low profile on them until the timing was right. They did not allow them to be part of the national election debate and kept them under the radar because at the time do to otherwise was political suicide. They spent years preparing the groundwork and they struck at the right time. Look at how successful they have been.
We, on the other hand, do just the opposite. We force our candidates to take wildly unpopular very public positions on our core values. Then the candidate gets defined by them within those groups where they are unpopular (with a huge assist from the MSM) and bye, bye, to a significant percent of the vote for no good reason at all. We should not compromise, but should recognize the fact that in a war sometimes a frontal assault is suicidal.
“How to win elections and have it matter”
Now that’s key to be sure.
The problem with the Sit-Down-When-They-Pee-GOPe is that for the most part, they are indistinguishable from Democrats. For example, is there any real difference in the opinion of Marco Rubio and Chuckie Schumer in the matter of illegal immigration ? No. Is there any difference between Pat Toomey’s view on obliterating the Second Amendment and your rank and file progressivik ? No, not really. We could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea.