No Surrender

The latest "advice" were getting from prominent conservatives is to abandon the presidential campaign and dump all our resources on tight Senate races so the Dems don't get to 60.

While I think limiting the Senate losses is important, will this strategy really work? If we essentially surrender the presidency a week before the election, what stops the Obama machine from swamping Senate races with their money too? And how will we get all the severely demoralized conservatives to the polls in this case?

Even if it does work, will it matter? Democrat senators couldn't stop the Bush tax cuts when they had 50 seats. Republicans couldn't stop the Clinton tax increase and gun control bill with 43 seats (and a lot of conservative democrats). Democrats couldn't stop the Reagan agenda even though they controlled the house. And if we give up the presidential election and Obama wins in a landslide blowout, couldn't he claim that he had a huge mandate for change and frighten some of the more moderate Republicans into switching sides?

Finally, I don't think this election is over. I am under no illusions of our chances, and if this was any other election I would agree that we have lost at this point. But this election has been so wildly unpredictable that I think anything can happen at this point, including the polls being wrong. Again, not likely, but possible.

The presidency is at least worth fighting for. We shouldn't surrender it to save Ted Stevens.