Somewhere along the way someone forgot one of the chief rules of politics: win the general election.We have been so focused on primaries, we’re forgetting that the endgame is victory in November not [insert your primary date here]. I remember in one of the campaign books James Carville and Paul Begala wrote that was actually very good (complete with a great pancake recipe), they wrote that winning the general election was what matters, not the primary. They advised positioning yourself in such a way that you could win the primary without then having to bail on everything to win the general election.Well, we need to consider that advice this morning because Chuck DeVore outperforms Carly Fiorina against Barbara Boxer.The logic we are supposed to pursue in this matter is this: Carly is outperforming Chuck in the primary and she is better than Tom Campbell, so go with Carly.The logic we ought to pursue is this: Chuck outperforms Carly against Boxer and Campbell does better than them both against Boxer, so maybe we should be supporting Chuck instead of Carly to beat both Campbell and Boxer.After all, say what you will about the primary, but please tell me how running a woman who has laid off half of California, sending their jobs to China, is really going to be competitive against Barbara Boxer.