Recent election results bolster Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s prescription for derailing the Democrats. His new book, “Right Now: A 12-step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda” outlines why returning to a principled, free-market agenda will deliver a Republican majority to Congress.

But the fact that Steele has repeatedly disobeyed his own advice begs the question of whether recent gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey and the Senate victory in Massachusetts last week happened in spite of him. It should also make party elders wonder if the man in charge of the party can sway the masses when joblessness subsides.