Today is my birthday. Do you know what I want more than anything for my birthday? To win Missouri’s senate seat this November. I don’t really care whether or not you think Todd Akin’s comment was dumb (it was) or if you think he groveled enough (he did). It’s irrelevant when you compare the candidates’ voting records.

We act as though we have decades and years of elections to jack around until we get a perfect, stain-free candidate. We, an imperfect, selfish people act like we’re picking the next Messiah, not a citizen candidate. While we hesitate to push someone into a seat the left acts faster and fills it. While we focus on the trees and fight over tactics, the left solidifies strategy and focuses on the forest.

If what Akin said was more contemptible to you than anything McCaskill has ever said or her voting record, you were never going to vote for him anyway.

If you find Akin’s six second, apologized-for remark more offensive than the thought of a Democrat senate controlling SCOTUS nominations, more offensive than Claire McCaskill’s refusal as a senator to pass a budget in over a thousand days, more insensitive than McCaskill’s sell-out of your body’s sovereignty to an unelected HHS board, more irresponsible than McCaskill’s vote to shutter coal plants across Missouri and cost thousands of union and non-union coal jobs, then you need to ask yourself on which side you stand.

We don’t have the luxury of waiting until another election. SCOTUS nominations are coming now. Remember how outraged you were over the Supreme Court vote on Obamacare. Imagine losing even more to progressive nominations that will hear everything from Internet freedom to Second Amendment rights. Are you willing to gamble your freedoms? I’m not.

If you call yourself a Christian and you can’t get past Akin’s remark, ask yourself whether or not you believe in redemption. Ask yourself whether or not you’ve a plank in your eye.

Over a month ago I Tweeted, wrote, and said on air that I would support Akin’s decision to exit the race if he so chose. I also said that I wasn’t confident as to whether or not he could still win this race. His campaign floundered, the media and outside entities attacked. I also doubted the right’s ability to effectively battle this narrative when the reality is so much worse for his challenger.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that I was doing something I never before had done: I was walking away from a fight. I was leaving one of the staunchest defenders of the tea party in the battlefield.

A general goes to war with the soldiers he has and warriors don’t leave people in the field over a mispoken remark.

The reality of my decision stunned me into immobility.

I won’t make such a mistake again.

Do you want the power of investigation, impeachment, nomination in the hands of the most conservative people in Washington? Or are you content with Obama’s senate controlling things for a couple of years longer—which will be all it takes to forever “fundamentally transform” America?

It’s your choice. Not many are up for the fight. Many are content to warm their hands by the fire of another patriot. Many think it’s enough to stand in the sun on a Saturday with a placard for a couple of hours. Even more think it’s just enough to vote.

Not any longer. See the forest. See the strategy. Win the senate. We can’t shake it up until we get our foot in the door and right now? We’re the underdogs.

Help me win Missouri’s senate seat. Do it for America. Do it for your children’s future. Do it for my birthday.

Start now.

Today’s soundtrack:

Muse “Knights of Cydonia”

No one’s gonna take me alive
Time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive

Rush “Tom Sawyer”

Though his mind is not for rent,
Don’t put him down as arrogant.
His reserve, a quiet defense,
Riding out the day’s events.
The river

And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society.
Catch the mist, catch the myth
Catch the mystery, catch the drift.

The Chemical Brothers “Galvanize”

Now don’t you try and move me
You’re just gonna lose
There’s a crash on the levee
And mama, you’ve been refused

Related—autumn jams: Suicidal Tendencies “You Can’t Bring Me Down,” Ministry “Watch Yourself,” Metallica “Don’t Tread On Me.”