For sure, we have to play it a lot smarter next time.
We, as conservatives, may never have the opportunity we had after the 2004 election.
Instead of standing with our moderate/conservative coalition, everyone went off on a tangent. Every talking head found something to bash Bush on, suddenly he wasn't conservative enough on every issue for some conservatives.
There were plenty of warnings on FR about what the consequence of such an approach would have. Oh well...we were in a minority for forty years and the nation survived.