Nile Gardiner
Telegraph [UK]
19 Feb 2010
What a difference a year makes. A year ago, the liberal media in America (i.e. about 90% of the print press) had written off conservatism as dead and buried. An avowedly left-wing president worshipped with almost messianic zeal across much of the world, from Paris to Nairobi, had swept into the White House, bolstered by a Democrat-dominated Congress in both the House and the Senate. The Right appeared broken, divided, and disillusioned, rudderless and leaderless, supposedly the political equivalent of the remnants of Custer’s Last Stand.
One year on, it is the Left that is imploding, weakened by faction-fighting, struggling to keep momentum, and increasingly lacking in self-confidence, led by the least popular American president of the modern era at such an early stage of the presidency. Liberals have been stunningly humbled by three catastrophic defeats in Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey, political earthquakes that have transformed the electoral landscape ahead of the November 2010 mid-terms. And worse was to come. Just this week, the White House was stunned by a CNN poll that showed that 52 percent of Americans believe Barack Obama should not be reelected in 2012, a powerful vote of no confidence in a president who’s big government agenda has been overwhelmingly rejected.
In contrast, the state of conservatism is extremely healthy – from the striking success of Fox News and talk radio to the rise of grass roots movements that have sprung up all over the country to protest against higher taxes, spiraling budget deficits and socialized health care. There is a new sense of optimism and confidence among conservatives that had been missing for many years, amply displayed at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicked off yesterday, attended by a staggering 10,000 or so delegates.
The article continues at the Telegraph.
