1. United States
2. Colo.
3. Letter

There is a lesson most Americans learn long before they are old enough to vote. It is learned on baseball diamonds, football fields, basketball courts, and wrestling mats across this country. When the game is over, the competitors line up, shake hands, and look one another in the eye. It doesn't matter whether they won by twenty points or lost in heartbreaking fashion. They show respect. They accept the outcome. They demonstrate character. We teach our children this lesson because we want them to become adults. Any child can celebrate a victory. Character is revealed in defeat. As parents, coaches, and mentors, we tell our children that when the game is over, they do not stomp away in anger because they dislike the score. They do not refuse to acknowledge the result. They do not pick up their ball and walk off the field. They accept reality with dignity and move forward. Those lessons are meant for grown men, not just children. Your refusal to concede stands in direct opposition to the values we work so hard to instill in the next generation. Leadership demands humility. It demands the ability to place principle above pride and duty above personal ambition. When that ability is absent, the public notices. Many politicians have lost elections. Some lost honorably and preserved their reputations. Others allowed their disappointment to define them. History rarely remembers the final vote totals. It remembers character. Years from now, few people will remember the details of this election. They will remember how those involved conducted themselves when faced with an outcome they did not like. They will remember who respected the process and who refused to accept it. They will remember who behaved as a statesman and who behaved as though the rules only mattered when they produced a desired result. The tragedy is that the standard is not complicated. We expect it from Little League players. We expect it from high school athletes. We expect it from our children. Surely we should expect no less from a member of Congress. You have a choice about how this chapter ends and how you will be remembered. As someone who respected the outcome, honored the process, and demonstrated maturity in defeat, or as someone whose pride prevented him from doing what millions of American children learn to do every weekend: walk across the field, shake hands, and accept the result.