We beat him up enough that I feel obliged to post when he does something right. This is one of his better moments as chairman, not only pushing a message needed to win but doing himself a big favor in the process. He’s tried before to ingratiate himself with tea partiers, but that idea was drowned long ago in a sea of gaffes. So here’s his second attempt, filling a space foolishly vacated last night by the NRSC when it initially said it wouldn’t give her any money. The base wants the leadership to be excited about grassroots upstarts, and if it can’t get excited, to at least show no reservations about them. Steele’s message: No reservations. In fact, according to Time, he’ll expand a bit on that tonight on CNN:

On what he’d say to Republicans who don’t think Republican Christine O’Donnell can win Joe Biden’s old Senate seat in the general election.

MICHAEL STEELE, RNC CHAIRMAN: I don’t know if she can win until we try. How can you claim defeat before you attempt victory? This makes no sense. It makes no sense. So stop it. Stop it.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: That’s your message to them? Stop it?

STEELE: That’s my message. Stop it. Let’s get behind our nominees and win the election. Then we can have a meeting and sit down and talk about all that stuff. Let me tell you, victory is going to be a sweet thing and I don’t think you want to have that meeting where you’re going to start parsing out who’s up, who’s down, who wins, who loses.

It ain’t much, but it’s all to the good. And speaking of getting behind nominees, news in the last hour or so from New Hampshire is that Ovide Lamontagne has conceded to Kelly Ayotte and won’t seek a recount despite the margin of victory being paper-thin. Exit question: Can you feel the healing?