The election is over. The teeth gnashing and circular firing squads should end, too. Now we have to work together to develop a strategy for the years ahead — one that Ronald Reagan would endorse: containment followed by rollback.
At the onset, there were silver linings on Election Day that should not be dismissed. Barack Obama does not have a mandate. Obama won with nearly 7.5 million fewer votes than he had in 2008 — the only president to win reelection with fewer votes than he had when first elected. Jim Geraghty at National Review notes that a mere 407,000 more Romney votes in four swing states would have landed him the Presidency. Thirty states now have Republican Governors, an all-time high. In 23 of those states Republicans also control both houses of the state legislature.