I’d challenge you to find vast numbers that ran on unapologetic leftist platforms. They didn’t. They took advantage of an anti-GOP atmosphere and in some cases got to the right of the incumbents, many of whom got caught with their britches down. The Burns race, as I cited, had zero to do with ideology. The media and the rodents portrayed him as simply corrupt or involved with shady figures. He was innocent, but that wasn’t conveniently revealed until AFTER the election of a rodent. The rodents play very, very dirty.
We had the potential to knock off MT’s Max Baucus in a previous contest with a decent and personable state legislator who was renowned for doing a good impersonation of Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, the rodents turned it against the Republican, ran some ads of him from the ‘70s cutting another man’s hair and implied he was a creepy gay hairdresser. Absolutely false gay-baiting sleaze that had the Republicans done it, they’d have been crucified. Nope, there’s a different set of rules for both parties. They get away with murder and we’re convicted before we even begin to campaign. If we can’t overcome THAT gap, we may never reclaim the majority again.
But again, if you get down to making race-by-race excuses, that's no glowing endorsement of conservatism. You (and Rush) want to make the argument that Conservatism always wins. Well, it flat doesn't. Goldwater got hammered. And in 2006, the more conservative the candidate (Santorum, Blackwell), the worse they got whupped.
I prefer to take a realistic position that says, "Hey, maybe now isn't our time." That doesn't mean I cave an inch on conservative positions: Churchill held the same position for 15 years until the country came around to him; Lincoln held the position that slavery was wrong long before it was fashionable, and lost a senate race and was excluded from the Whig administration of Taylor for it. It just means that we need to be realistic and understand that like the Bible says, "For every time there is a season." Keep fighting, but don't fool yourself into thinking everyone agrees with us.