It was a while back in my chronological adulthood. I was under the delusion that I was cut out for professional sales. That delusion was a psychological adjustment to the fact that I had graduated from college amidst the 1991 recession, didn’t have credentials that would set the world afire, and couldn’t find much work outside the world of full commission sales.

So I took that sack of lemons and tried to make some beverage. I took a job selling water filters on straight commission and convinced myself that I would dominate sales. I read Napoleon Hill, I read Zig Zigler, and I read Og Mandino. I learned from my studies and became a better educated man. Actually selling a few water filters would have been icing on the cake.

Even now, at least by President-Elect Barack Obama’s official definition, I’m not rich™. But at least I did think some while I initially struggled. I claim that I genuinely learned a thing or two from being an abject failure as a sales professional. The most important thing I learned was this. You do not begin to sell until your prospect tells you “No.”

In Election 2008, the Republican Party, as the sales force of the American Right, just got told “No”. This is unfortunate, and in my mind a pathetic travesty. But unlike a certain, recent President, I understand that this is fact and will not sit around quibbling about what the definition of “is” is.

In other words, the next two years for Conservatives won’t be easy. It will not be fun. If you are not of a certain political persuasion, hope and change is going to feel like a kabob stick to the urethra. But as Bluto asked in Animal House, ”Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

Another part of Bluto’s oration that is far more astute than his grasp of history is this. “Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is!”

The Election of 2008, that’s over. We got told “No, you can’t!” Fair dinkum, as the Aussies say. They won a round. But the debate; did you say “over”?

Not if you’ve read what I’ve read. Not if you understand that everything worth having and worth believing is worth getting told to go flaming down into Hell for. We can quit, drink the Kool-Aid and proclaim our undying devotion to Howard Dean’s perverted form of Incsoc.

It’s a heck of a lot easier to do that. Not even David Frum, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker or Peggy Noonan wanted to stand up and defend “ChimpyBushMcHitlerburton” this time out. After eight years of flying around America defending George W. Bush, I guess some people’s arms were tired.

But; there’s just one wee, little problem with taking the easy way out and becoming a “Republican that grows.’ I don’t believe that the philosophy espoused, to bring the hope and change the Democratic Party has promised, will work any better here than it did in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

I’m not accusing Barack Obama of wanting to run a gulag, and assume that he is a decent man who would genuinely be sickened, and recoil from the very idea. But what I am saying is simple logic. An economy that takes from each according to their abilities; and gives to each according to their needs, will forever spiral down into failure. That paradigm generates a whole bunch of needs and not too much in the way of ability.

People do what they are rewarded for. Socialistic “wealth spreading” pays them to sit on their cans. Everyone that we need to do hard work and bring in the crops will take a seat and get nice and comfy. Thus, I can’t just shut up and drink the Kool-Aid.

In another great line from Animal House, Dean Vernon Wermer explains why I feel compelled not to take the easy way out here. “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

Instead we can reclaim our individuality and stand tall in the face of electoral and social opprobrium. Let leftist Attack-Hamster Charles Schumer target us with his fairness doctrine. Let people call us racist for describing stupid ideas and promises of a Tommorrow-Morrow Land that will never exist a recipe for unmitigated boondoggle and failure. To quote our illustrious new President Elect, “That is a debate that our ticket welcomes.”

We, as Conservatives, were not banished to the outer darkness. We were quite simply told “no.” No hurts, but it’s a starting point. No, is when you first begin sell.

Cross-Posted At:THE MINORITY REPORT