OpinionJournal - The election was a referendum on GOP failure.

This really sums it up. Conservatism did not lose, because conservatism did not run. Republicans ran. And they lost because they made the saddest mistake that anyone makes: trying to get rich playing another man's game. In this case, bringing home the pork is the Democrats' game.

As Anthony Quinn said to Irene Pappas in The Guns of Navarone, trying to explain to her why her brother got himself killed,

He forgot why we came here.

So now we have to start again. How long will it take? Hard to say. But this time we won't have any more RINO's to give us the illusion of power.