Dear lord, American conservatives have moved halfway toward being self-aware. Ned Ryun, a diarist at Red State, has published a post titled "I Think Sometimes We are Truly a Stupid Movement." It's kind of an incredible read, documenting the semi-conscious state of modern conservatives in the aftermath of their Election Day losses. I like this paragraph most of all:

There are other factors in winning. I know that. Like having a candidate people can get fired up about. But that aside, unless we commit to real grassroots and GOTV, and by that I mean knocking and talking on doors, and having personal contact with the voters, and not just in the last month or two of the election season, we’re not going to win. People will say we must have a better message. I like our message, and quite frankly if we would tap into the conservative populism message of, “We hate Big (government, corporations, banks, etc.),” we can and will win. There is nothing wrong with our message. There is everything wrong with our approach and tactics. People are wringing their hands about how much further ahead the Obama campaign is with data and technology. In the technology arms race, we can actually catch up, even move ahead. We, on our side, have the databases and technology, that with some more investment and development, can and will be better by 2014.

The comment section, in which one person argues that convincing people to vote for a candidate is a weak, Democratic way of thinking, is a beaut, too. As to Ryun's big point, I'm unsure how a conservative believes they can be against both big government and big corporations/banks. Wouldn't being against big business involve...I dunno...regulations? And regulators. Which is a government thing, isn't it? But, sure. There is nothing wrong with your message, guys.