It was 1:25 a.m. on November 5, 2008. The Republicans had just lost badly. Barack Obama had given his victory speech. Jesse Jackson had cried. And I was tired.

I sat down at my computer and wrote this post entitled “The After. The Before. The Future, Present, and Past.” The subtitle was “The Day After and the Day After That, We’ll Fight On.”

I was tired that night. I am tired still.

For every kind email I get, I get dozens of emails filled with hate and invective. And that’s from our own side. I was attacked for supporting Nikki Haley. RedState was attacked.

I was called crazy for beating up Bob Bennett and declaring it necessary for conservatives to replace him with Mike Lee. Republican politicos whispered to reporters about how detached I and RedState had become. They called me and you too “fringe.”

Republicans could not believe that I would expend so much energy rallying people to defeat the allegedly conservative Robert Bennett of Utah and then, horror of horrors, go all in to support Mike Lee.

This morning, as you wake up, know this: Nikki Haley is the Republican nominee for Governor of South Carolina. Tim Scott and Jeff Duncan are both Republican nominees for congress in South Carolina — they are solid conservatives.

And Mike Lee? He’ll be the next Senator from Utah. All were backed by RedState.

I am tired. I have not had a vacation in God knows win. But today, we at RedState, though we may be tired, wake up winners. We remember our losses, like with Chuck DeVore and Marlin Stutzman for the Senate, but we savor our wins. And we just won big.

So here again is my advice and my caution — the same I delivered that night a year and a half ago when things looked so bad. I have not changed a word:

Many of you have been with us on the front lines slogging it out for months on end, never resting and never yielding. You need to go to the back, rest, and recover. In the army the field hospital is well off the front, but not out of the sound of fire. When troops are pulled from the front, they need to rest and recover, but not be so far removed that they mentally extricate themselves from the fight all together.

The same is true for us. You may not want to post diaries for a while. You may not want to engage in the comments. You may be feeling raw and just don’t want to deal with it. So don’t. Rest and recover. But stop by the site and read. Stay engaged on email. Don’t withdraw completely, despite your inclination to do so. At some point again you will be needed. We will need you. And you will again, though you may not think so today, you will again want to fight.

Take today and rest. Enjoy your friends and family.

I hope our contributors take a day too to rest. Work through and away from the burn out. Get your mind right again. The front now changes. The fight is now different. Things will change of necessity.

But RedState remains on the front lines. We will still be here tomorrow. We continue to fight. We aim to win. In the coming weeks we’ll deploy new tools, new weapons, and new contributors in this new fight. It is going to be damn fun. That I promise.

So take today and rest. I can’t blame you. In the mean time I will stand watch on the front. I will fight the fight while you re-energize. I’ll still be here when you come back. And when you do come back, you can stand on either hand and continue to keep this bridge with me. I’ll rest when I’m dead. At RedState, we fight on.

Now let me add to these words two more: Thank you.

You guys have had my back. You’ve fought for me and with me and defended me and kept me in line all the same. Sometimes you doubt me. Sometimes you think I’ve gone off the deep end. But I know you guys have my back. Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we keep fighting for freedom.