Never Despair

Tuesday night was truly a bitter, disappointing result. There is no way around it.

My thoughts for the conservative movement: now is not the time to be discouraged. Now is not the time to point fingers at candidates who gave their all or at allies within the movement. Now is not the time to lash out at our opponents on the Left. And lastly, now is not the time to wonder whether or not we can turn things around. Of course we can. Of course we will.

In the months ahead, we are going to carefully study what we did right and what we did wrong over the last year - from messaging to activist mobilization to technology, to new media. We will examine in detail what the Left did as well. Then our movement is going to become bigger, stronger, better organized, smarter, more nimble and tougher so we can advocate for our issues and promote economic freedom.

We've won major victories -- defeating cap-and-trade, stopping card check, and countless state policy wins.

And yes, we've suffered grievous defeats including the heart wrenching health care issue in 2010.

Conservatives have been knocked down before and gotten back up. This time will be no different.

Next week begins the lame duck session of Congress where they’ll be deciding your tax rate, energy policy and making final decisions on the spending cuts we fought for all year. Americans for Prosperity will be engaging our activists in this crucial policy battle. Let’s not allow one night of disappointment to erase the years-long effort to trim the bloated fed government and force them to cut spending.

In 2004, the Left failed to defeat a sitting President they thought was disastrous to their agenda and vulnerable politically. However, during the early years of the decade their movement built powerful capabilities and strengthened their effectiveness in the face of withering electoral defeats in 2000, 2002 and then 2004. They ignored talk of a "transformation" in the electorate that would doom them to long-term decline. Two years later they captured Congress and then won the presidency in 2008.

So it's ironic to hear them telling us that we are on the path to long-term decline! We control our destiny.

Recently I finished reading a book by A.J. Langguth called Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. In the early 1770s, the fledgling Patriot cause -- really nothing more than a grassroots movement at the time -- suffered political and issue defeats time and again at the hands of a seemingly invincible British Empire and their Tory allies in the colonies.

After one such defeat a key lieutenant of Samuel Adams canvassed a number of Massachusetts towns seeking to rally support for the cause but he reported back that "They are dead, and the dead can't be raised without a miracle." Adams replied, "Nil desperandum. Never despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it."

So take it from the original community organizer Samuel Adams. There is no need to despair. The American people are still a great and wise people. They want individual freedom and a more limited government.

I am despondent and will continue to be so until...I’m not anymore.
Voted for the Mass. Moderate against my better judgment and where did it get us?

I am very angry too and not nearly ready to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again!
And if one self identified proud Obama voting lib tries to talk to me, they are gonna get an earful. I wish I could punch them but for that, there may be consequences.

Catholic church: We couldn’t pray for our candidates at choir practice because a number of pro abort members sitting behind me might be offended.
Screw them!
They are stupid, dangerous people.

I agree with him in part...don’t despair. Instead, replace it with a steely resolve to not let those you care about end up as serfs in a socialist hellhole. To echo Brother Bluto’s words: was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? It’s not over until we SAY it’s over!

That said, it IS time to think about what we really want and how to get there. I do not agree the author that “now is not the time to wonder whether or not we can turn things around.” I think it’s perfectly valid and sane to ask ourselves what victory looks like. Tuesday was indeed a slap in the face. I don’t think that future “victory” for conservatives is going to involve continuing to try to drag along the denizens of Sodom who have made it abundantly clear that they’re not interested in what we’re selling.

The choices were stark, the majority of the electorate made it’s choice.

Good post and I respectfully disagree. As my site handle would indicate, I have a healthy amount of experience with the left as well. The left isn’t so much interested in money as they are power. Raw, unadulterated power. The 20th century is replete with examples of what happens when the left obtains it. As well as what fate is in store for the minority that chooses to not go along quietly.

I guess its just human nature to deny reality when that reality is horrible to contemplate. But I ask you: what is it about the underlying character of of our popular leftists like holder, reid, pelolsi, et al that you think is more honorable or moral that that of say robert mugabe?

Do you think Nancy Pelosi wants power so she can make us all wear red shirts? Nope. They want power because it leads to money. I don’t think they are as honorable as Mugabe. They are as honorable as John Dillinger or Bernie Madoff. Everybody goes weak in the knees about the Democrat leadership because they might be communists. They’re as communist as Bernie Madoff. Look at their big hero Ayers. He lies about his age. Why would a good communist do that? He wants the coeds to think he’s still virile. There are some communists in the Democrat leadership, but the vast majority are just grifters. And never forget that every communist revolution was about people gaining power and wealth who felt they couldn’t obtain power and wealth through the system that was in place. Communism and socialism are just hoaxes.

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