Dream on, "Progressives." Dream on!

That the Left has managed to deceive itself into believing that the repudiation of an unpopular president under whose watch the economy disintegrated is somehow an ideological victory of enduring consequence is one of the great wonders of the modern age. That any reasonable person could read the Obama triumph as a victory for the radicals in the culture war is a monument to the capacity of the cultural elites for self-deception and wishful thinking.

And the wishful thinking which makes Joe McCarthy, rather than Bob Taft, the patron saint of post-World War II conservatism simply does not inspire confidence in the political savvy of those who are able to engage in such absurdities.

Yes, the Democrats have the White House again- and solid control of both houses of Congress. The Republican party is in for some rough times. But these times are no rougher than the aftermath of the Goldwater debacle or Watergate.

To quote the Republican governor of California, "We'll be back-" and sooner than the cultural elites on the left imagine.

Almost regardless of the course of the next eight years (and yes, I'm afraid that I have to revise my earlier opinion; as of this early stage, Barack Obama's re-election seems more probable than otherwise), the odds remain better than fifty-fifty that a Republican will be elected president of the United States in 2016, and about fifty-fifty that the GOP will win control of at least one house of Congress- and maybe both- before that time.

Enjoy the fantasy while it lasts, "progressives." Reality waits, in Bill Kristol's phrase, to mug you once again. An ideology based on wishful thinking is doomed to suffer that fate over and over and over again, especially when it allows that unwonted optimism to spill over from the realm of ideology and anthropology into the analysis of election returns.

On each and every one of the issues upon which Tannenhaus argues that Republicans are deceived for failing to perceive their utter defeat in the Obama victory, the ultimate issue remains very much in doubt. And on none of them is the ideological center anywhere near where Tannenhaus seems to think it is.

HT: Real Clear Politics

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