The election is over, and from the sound of all the major news networks, so is the Conservative movement.
Call me an optimist if you wish but I find that to be a laughable proposition. Largely, I think this because everyone is in post-election meltdown mode.
Democrats are hailing the victory as the cementing of “Obama’s America.” Conservatives are distraught over the fact that voter turnout didn’t favor them as we all had predicted, and at the idea that there aren’t as many of us out there as we thought.
The right is searching for the answer to a question we never thought we’d have to ask. How could we lose to a President with such a weak record?
While I don’t have a simple answer to that question, I can offer hope for the conservative disenchanted among us.
Now brace yourselves, because I’m going to do something rarely done. I’m going to compare Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan won the popular vote by about 17,000,000 votes. He won the electoral college with the incomprehensible margin of 525-13. Were Democrats forever wiped of the face of the earth to never again regain power?
Of course not.
They maintained control of Congress, and less than 8 years after that Presidential shellacking, a Democrat President was sitting in the oval office.
8 years to come back from 17,000,000 votes.
By contrast, Barack Obama narrowly defeated Mitt Romney by less than 3,000,000 votes with a much larger electorate.
On Tuesday night, we lost an election. Nothing more.
I’m not saying Obama is the Democrat Reagan. I’m not saying Mitt Romney is Walter Mondale. What I am saying is come back off the ledge. We suffered a defeat, but it certainly is not one that we’re incapable of coming back from.
In the athletic arena, I was taught something very early on about defeat, and it rings just as true in the political arena. “There’s only one good thing about losing. You learn where you are weak, so that you may become strong.”
At this time, I’m not going to get into all things I’ve learned from this election, but there are many. So while you’re at home thinking about how things have gone wrong, how we all feel as though we’ve been dealt a bad hand, remember the one good thing about losing.
Don’t waste this loss. Use it, and let’s build a stronger Conservatism.
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