Agree on the first part. But on the second, not so much.
The article's right - the GOP needs to wage the kind of political warfare that the Dems are experts in.
The article mentions that while the polls show that people want positive campaigns, negative campaigns work.
The reason is that the Dem approach to campaigns has been to jack up their base turnout while depressing centrist turnout by making centrists hate BOTH sides (pox on both your houses) and demoralizing the GOP base. Which gets frustrated by the lack of willingness of their own side to fight.
This is what Obama and Romney's respective targeting strategies looked like:
So, I really have no problem with Conservative candidates hiring political mercenaries who know how to put up a fight and how to win. Even ones who have used their talents in the past to go after Conservatives. We're to a point right now where, for Conservatives, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. And if that means bringing in practitioners of the political dark arts to take on the expert Dem dark arts practitioners, so be it.