As a heartbroken crowd flowed slowly out of the Marriott ballroom in Richmond where Ken Cuccinelli’s victory party had turned into a sad farewell, the Old Dominion’s Republican insiders started the long, messy process of searching their souls (and their fellow Republicans’ souls) to try to diagnose what exactly went wrong on Tuesday night and in the long months preceding it. When the hangovers fade, expect one theme to emerge: It’s complicated.

It’s complicated for a host of reasons. Bill Bolling’s allies will point to Cuccinelli’s unflinching social conservatism. Others will cite an incredibly unhelpful third-party candidate, the untimely scandals that dogged Governor Bob McDonnell’s administration, and what many describe as the attorney general’s total inability to compete in the fundraising game.

And others will say the opposite. One Virginia Republican insider, for instance, tells National Review Online that Cuccinelli erred by failing to align himself more closely with the scandal-dogged governor. Sure, McDonnell might have been unpopular, but his favorability was consistently higher than either of the gubernatorial contenders’. Sources in the governor’s office tell National Review Online that McDonnell did everything the Cuccinelli campaign asked, which wasn’t much.

Still others say the race was called from the start, which made it that much harder to drum up enthusiasm and big-dollar donations — in other words, everyone decided Cuccinelli was going to lose and, surprise! everyone was right. (Bonus round: Here’s an anonymous Cuccinelli adviser telling Matt Lewis it’s the Republican Governor’s Association’s fault.)

And a source close to the Cuccinelli campaign says that, oddly enough, it had a tragedy of riches.

“There was so much stuff to hit Terry on and it was just like you were at a buffet of great oppo,” he says. “But you’re never really able to tie it into a digestible meal for voters.”

He adds that the campaign was plagued by “this phenomenon of always chasing the shiny object” — it struggled to give voters one cohesive message about the Democratic nominee.

What’s especially tricky about parsing all of this? It’s hard to prove any part of the postgame show is really off-base.

“The problem with a race like this is, when you lose everyone’s going to have their own idea of what went wrong,” says a Richmond insider. “Everybody’s probably got a valid point right now.”

And a Republican consultant who followed the race closely and did some outside spending adds that he saw at least seven to ten discrete factors that undercut Cuccinelli’s odds of victory. Among them: the perception that the race was over. Getting deep-pocketed donors to pony up cash for TV ads in Northern Virginia isn’t easy. And then the situation perpetuates itself. After last night’s defeat, donors may be more hesitant to invest in Virginia Republican candidates, the consultant argues, holding that it’s a special kind of irony: Would-be donors may be stingier in the future because of Tuesday’s losses, and that kind of stinginess was a significant factor in begetting Cuccinelli’s defeat in the first place.

But let’s put the past thing behind us. As of Wednesday, November 6, Virginia politics are uniquely balkanized. A well-connected source explains that between a host of competing factions — including tea-party activists; business interests loosely helmed by Bobbie Kilberg; old-school, traditionally minded Republicans in the Shenandoah Valley; and Evangelical conservatives with nexuses at Liberty University, Regent University, and the Family Foundation — Virginia Republicans’ capacity for infighting might be unmatched. And last night’s results probably won’t engender popular will for any kumbaya moment, especially given that many state conservatives will see Cuccinelli’s loss as simply the result of Establishment Republicans’ interest in claiming a scalp.

So that leaves state senator Mark Obenshain in a very interesting predicament. If he pulls off a win in the attorney general’s race (big if, but as of 1 p.m. on Wednesday things looked sunny), he’ll be the de facto leader of the state’s Republicans, tasked with regenerating a party in a state with monumental significance for national elections. His last name will help him. He’ll need the help.