To Learn from one's defeats -- excerpt paragraphs MATTHEW DOWD (National Journal) Nov. 5 posting

he is a columnist for National Journal but also appears on ABC News This Week with Christine Amanpour:

Much of the analysis will be from the vantage point of the winners. As the famous quote says, winners get to write history. But the more interesting story is what happens to the losers. Because, in the end, most of us learn more from our setbacks than our successes.

Why is that? People who win usually assume they did everything right. They don’t really question decisions made along the way, and many times they end up drawing the wrong conclusions from their experience. They view decisions through the prism of the end result of victory, and it’s human nature to think that those decisions were instrumental in the win. Interestingly, most misinterpretation comes from victories. So let’s move on to understanding the losses.
From an emotional standpoint, what is it like to lose an election after investing so much time, effort, and passion in a campaign? Nearly every person I have come across in a campaign, regardless of party affiliation, puts his or her heart and soul into it. They are involved because they believe in politics or the candidate, and they want to make their community or country better.
So when they don’t succeed, it is truly a loss—in the full meaning of that word. Those on the losing side have to go through the stages of grief to heal from a very personal wound. It’s like what happens when a loved one or close friend ends a relationship with you. You struggle to understand why. You take it personally because it is a personal rejection. You question everything that happened along the way. You start to doubt people around you who said that you were going to succeed. You lose trust in yourself because you didn’t see it coming and thought you were on the right path. You wonder over and over—late at night, early in the morning, when you’re trying to concentrate on something else—whether you could have done anything differently.
You need to go through those stages of grief as quickly as your heart and head will allow. The first stage is denial. You can’t believe that the voters rejected you. You could have won, if you had more money, if your opponent hadn’t lied about you, if, if, if. Take note in the coming weeks whether President Obama and his staff admit the loss he suffered on Tuesday and adjust course, or whether they stay in denial and retrench.
The next stage is a combination of anger and sadness. You’re hurt by the rejection, and the fact that you’re hurt bothers you. You’re upset at times with those closest to you. You’re upset with yourself. You’re upset with the voters. I have seen this stage continue for many years with staffers and candidates, and sometimes it lasts the rest of their lives. They are never able to come to grips with the situation and move on.
Finally, if you are on a healthy path (and have quit frequenting the local pub) and have some faith in life, you get to acceptance. The voters aren’t wrong just because they said no to you. They just wanted something different. Maybe you can be friends with those voters even if they didn’t want to go in the same direction as you did. Or maybe it just wasn’t the right time, and at some point in the future you and the voters might have that relationship you always wanted.
Loss is a wrenching process, whether you are Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who spent tens of millions of dollars only to be rejected by the voters of California; or Nancy Pelosi, who had the speaker’s gavel unceremoniously torn from her hands after a brief tenure; or a guy running for state representative in rural Alabama, who only wanted to do good.
I wish there was a support group for campaign loss I could send you to, or some 12-step program I could recommend. I understand and am sorry for your pain, having been through personal and professional loss, but you now belong to an important bonding club—and a bipartisan one.
Pat yourself on the back that you tried, that you put yourself on the line, that you worked hard at something you believed in, that you followed your heart, and that you got into the game when others just sat on the sidelines. That is something you can consider a huge victory in life. As Francis Bacon, the Renaissance philosopher, said, “There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.” And by the way, think about saddling up again in two years. Voters, like true friends, don’t hold grudges forever.