Mark Steyn: Winning Elections Isn’t Nearly as Important as Winning the Culture War

"Election day is one day a year and the culture is the other 364 days a year. So if you’re not out there competing in the schools, competing in the pop culture, competing in the media, competing in the main line churches, then the air that we breathe becomes liberal. That’s the default setting of society. And whoever gets elected on a Tuesday morning in November doesn’t actually make that much difference …

The reason candidates don’t get traction is when they’re trying to move toward the center. Effective conservative leaders, Reagan and Thatcher, to take the two most obvious examples, moved the center toward them. And that’s what you should be doing. Mrs. Thatcher had a great line, 'Before you can win the election, you have to win the argument.’”