This past November, President Obama was elected with “the largest share of the popular vote received by any presidential candidate in 20 years” after runningon the most progressive platform of any presidential candidate in at least 15 years, which included “a promise of universal health care coverage, a dramatic transformation to a low-carbon economy, and a historic investment in education.” As soon as he was elected, however, conservatives and many in the media rushed to claim that despite Obama’s resounding victory,”America remains a center-right country.” More often then not, this claim was based on the fact that in polling that asks Americans to identify themselves as conservative, liberal, or moderate, “nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals.”

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Looking for all the world like the sweating floor manager on the late afternoon shift at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club in an unbuttoned shiny black shirt and undersized sport coat, Rush Limbaugh leaned his meaty hands on the lectern at the CPAC conference and slipped a greasy dollar bill into the G-string of the writhing conservative dead-enders packed into the garishly lit Omni Shoreham in Washington DC. Jowls rolling like thunder from the right via CNN’s unfortunate high-definition feed, Limbaugh took control of the sad and tattered remnants of the mainstream conservative movement, and urged continued allegiance to the noble Lost Cause of Reagan, metaphorically carrying his rebel-yelling followers into the hills like modern-day Quantrill’s Raiders standing firm against change.

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