The conservative base, while looking to discipline its own, never expected so many tight races would aggregate toward wresting control in both houses of Congress and the majority of governorships. And while many conservative pundits are positing post-mortems, this message to conservative leaders hopes to provide assessment and encouragement from a grassroots activist perspective.

Although it's hard to make sense of the drubbing Republicans received, before the dust fully settles, the country's flagging will to "stay the course" has the look and feel of Viet Nam's Tet Offensive, where pacifist public relations trumped actual facts of the ground. Apparently the last 3-years of obstruction and legislative back-biting, combined with the media's never ending funeral dirge over war casualties and diminished prospects for winning, have so inculcated the myth and phony mandate for change that a majority of the voters acquiesced to the liberal's bidding in numbers sufficient to stall our progress.

While a multitude of factors contributed to this electoral outcome, the victors are content to consider this a repudiation of the administration's foreign policy. Never mind those tyrant regimes that were toppled and the nascent democracies that stand in their stead, or that the battle for Normandy claimed more casualties than 3-years of pacifying Iraq. At a minimum, votes indicate that expedience won over perseverance with self-serving boomers, who seem unable to muster the intestinal fortitude that our parents displayed.

Regardless of spin though, allow me to affirm how the election results are really playing in the heartland, by briefly recounting some unintended consequences, as well as their corresponding silver linings:

Next-gen conservative casualties - This time last year few pundits anticipated the potential for career-ending losses by conservatism's young lions, Santorum and Allen. That said, vacuous liberal ideals also had to take a back seat in order to get a new breed of socially conservative democratic candidates elected. And while thinning the ranks of the GOP's best and brightest is lamentable, some conservative purists actually cheered the electoral purging of RINOs like Lincoln Chaffee.

The Peter Principle's preemptive strike - After 12-years at the helm, apparently even yesterday's movers and shakers succumbed to establishment excesses. Never mind that earmark spending had topped $47-billion annually, it was the 2,000 cases of corruption under investigation by the FBI that would tank the approval levels of Congress. This on top of too few accomplishments to offset voter disdain, led to calls for "change" regardless of whether the agents of this change had defined their destination or not. That said, the revolutionary fervor still burns strong in the hearts of emerging leaders like Representative Mike Pence and the voter base that put him there.

Liberals at the levers of power - As of now though, hard fought conservative gains from rebuilding our national defense, to the economic stimulus of tax relief, to the appointment of constructionist judges...have effectively been put on hold. Yet hope springs eternal that the giant of conservatism will again be stirred by these losses. And of course now that liberals must preside under the Sword of Damocles that compels accountable leadership, they'll either have to act forthrightly on the existential issues that confront the nation, or be summarily dismissed in '08 for failure to lead.

In short, conservative leaders should take heart that the revolution is alive and well in the hinterlands of the nation. Tempered by zeal and redeemed with blood, our best days are yet future if elected officials will merely hold fast to commitments made in their Contract with America. It's about faith, family, and freedom by way of limited government, strong national defense, and traditional values perpetuated by generational cycles of reform.

One step back and two steps forward, we soldier on.