STUNNING COMEBACK FOR CONSERVATIVES in 2010
     Note how quickly conservatives are bounding back.

    After their disasters in the 2008 elections, conservatives' gains in the November 2010 U.S. elections will range from excellent to spectacular.

    Millions of outraged conservative Americans suddenly have become politically active, many of them for the first time in their lives. As Samuel Johnson noted long ago, an impending hanging focuses the mind wonderfully.

    Nobody predicted two years ago the conservative/libertarian phenomenon now called the Tea Party movement, a truly spontaneous grassroots uprising, more spontaneous than the Goldwater movement 50 years ago or the political awakening of religious conservatives in the late 1970s.

    America's 2010 elections will demonstrate again that the outcome of political battles is determined in the long run by the number and effectiveness of the activists on the respective sides.

    Anything which greatly increases the number of activists on only one side can tip the balance of political power. In less than a year, public outrage in response to the actions and agend of President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress has activated millions of Americans against them.

    Principled conservative activists and leaders, who certainly include the overwhelming majority of the new Tea Party folks, should now consider carefully where to go from here. See my post, "Conservative Republican Participation" on RedState.com.

    Will the newly active Americans become comfortable in a long-term coalition with veteran conservative activists, as did those who entered politics in the Goldwater era and during the later political rise of the religious right?

    Almost certainly.

    Pay no attention to commentators who speculate hopefully that the newly active conservatives won't be able to work with conservative political veterans in 2010 election contests. They worked in coalition in elections in 2009 and early 2010 and during the recent legislative battle over Obamacare.

    They'll keep working together.

    In the run-up to the 2010 elections, most of the Tea Party folks will do what they now intend to do: work hard to defeat leftists.

    Because the left fears they will lose many seats in both Houses of Congress this year, they will push tirelessly to pass as much of their agenda as they can in the current Congress. The aroused conservative base will stiffen legislative resistance and beat back many favorite bills of the left.

    These battles will keep conservative intensity, activism, and cooperation at a high level and increase the number of leftists who lose in November.

    Leftist power grabs will force almost all U.S. conservative leaders and both new and veteran activists to unite repeatedly against them.

    Surely this vigorous cooperation in legislative battles will carry over into the 2010 election campaigns.

    But what about the longer term?

    History makes an interesting parallel.

    Today's younger people cannot remember when President Jimmy Carter signed the treaty to give away the U.S. Panama Canal. The treaty generated intense public outrage. Most Americans considered the canal part of our national heritage. We built it. We paid for it. It was ours.

    Many conservative groups and leaders opposed the treaty. They identified and mobilized millions of Americans, including many who had never before participated politically. Throughout and after the battle in the Senate public opinion strongly opposed ratification of the treaty.

    In March 1978, 68 U.S. senators, just over the two-thirds majority required, voted to ratify the treaty.

    Conservatives lost that public policy battle, but the left suffered devastating defeats in the ensuing elections. Of the 68 senators who voted for the treaty, twenty were defeated for reelection in the 1978 or 1980 elections. Nine others of them retired during this period, many of them because they feared defeat.

    In 1980, Republicans won majority control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in more than a generation and held a majority for six years.

    On Christmas Eve 2009, 60 U.S. Senators, all Democrats and one Independent, voted to pass President Obama's health care reform bill, despite polls showing majority opposition from an aroused public.

    On March 25, 2010, 220 U.S. House Members, all Democrats, voted for final passge of the Obamacare bill, despite polls showing an increased majority of the public opposed.

    Real Clear Politics reported on April 20, 2010, that the current average of ten recent polls from different, national sources was 52.5% opposed to Obamacare, compared to 40.2% approval. It's a safe bet that those now opposed are more intense in their opinion than are the supporters.

    This will generate activism affecting the election results in November 2010 and beyond.

    Many of the newly-activated conservatives and libertarians have decided that they owe it to their philosophy to study how to win. That's the good news for our country's future.

    Large numbers of Tea Party leaders and heads of other grassroots groups are inviting Leadership Institute to conduct co-sponsored training schools for their members.

    The massive influx of Tea Party activists and others similarly motivated has dramatically increased the demand for LI's campaign-training schools.

    Institute staff are coping heroically with this abundance of opportunities to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative leaders and activists. And support form generous LI donors makes this possible.

The Leadership Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan, educational foundation. It does not support, endorse or oppose candidates or proposed legislation. The Institute has an open-admissions policy; all programs are open to the public. Contributions are tax-deductible. The views expressed in the above commentary are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Leadership Institute.

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