Steve Schmidt, trying to rally the McCain troops in Crystal City:

Being part of an effort that fails does not make you a loser; it makes you a competitor. . . .What makes you a loser is curling up into the fetal position at a time of adversity. The only thing that would ever define anyone as a loser is to quit before it is over.

I think he was trying to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt’s famous dictum that if someone fails, “at least he fails while daring greatly.”  Somehow, I don’t think he pulled it off.

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