For years we have been told that ideology doesn’t matter in American politics.  The media proudly proclaims that voters vote for the candidates and not their political philosophy.  This explained why such ideological candidates as Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were defeated by their so-called more moderate opponents.  It was also used to explain why Ronald Reagan was elected twice (voters liked the man but not his beliefs).  With the election of Barack Obama, the media dropped this canard.  Rather, America had seemingly come back to its senses with Obama and was returning back to liberalism.  Obama would be the left’s Ronald Reagan.  Indeed he would be more - he would be Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy all in one.  Somehow the American people forgot to get the memo. 

In fairness to Barack Obama (and I am usually not fair to him) he has governed like the liberal Democrat that he is.  His health care plan was the dream of liberal’s dating back to Truman (who felt such a plan was socialism).  His expansion of the federal government into the economy has far surpassed anything ever devised by Lyndon Johnson or Franklin Roosevelt.  The summer of 2009, or was it 2010, as Obama’s promises keep changing was going to be employment summer.  Americans were going to deeply embrace this liberal agenda.  Yet then something funny happened.

                                                      Americans liked and still like Obama personally.  He comes across as a nice man and a good family man.  Yet they despise his policies.  His economic recovery did not materialize and he was governing not as a moderate Democrat in the Bill Clinton tradition but as a liberal in the tradition of Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale.  Voters revolted.  Given a choice, even the moderate middle said they preferred conservative (not necessarily Republican) alternatives to liberal policies.  Polls showed more Americans identifying themselves as conservative then any time since the 1920s.  In the 2010 elections, conservative candidates for the most part swept the country.  Clear choices between a liberal and conservative viewpoint were presented in many races.

Most politicians and political parties would have moved to the center after such a historic defeat as suffered by Democrats and Barack Obama in 2010.  The media speculated that Obama would triangulate as Bill Clinton did after the 1994 defeat.  Yet Obama if anything went further to the left.  Yet even this was not far enough for many Democrats who grumbled he was not liberal enough.  So Obama moved even further to the left and now he and key Democrats are embracing Occupy Wall Street which has so many far left if not socialistic ideas and has been endorsed by China, Hugh Chavez, Fidel Castro, and the Supreme Leader of Iran.

Republicans have moved further to the right reflecting their Party activist sentiments and the overall mood of Independents who want conservative policies.  Even the so-called moderate middle prefers conservative choices versus liberal ones.  This is driving the Republican Presidential race.  Usually Mitt Romney, the runner up in 2008 would be the inevitable nominee and his support would be growing.  Yet his support has stayed at the same level throughout this campaign.  Voters aren’t sure if his conservative conversion is real.  They remember Richard Nixon in 1968 and George H.W. Bush who both promised that they were now true conservatives only to govern in a moderate way.  Voters don’t want to make that mistake again.  That is why we are seeing the rise of first Michele Bachmann then Rick Perry and now Herman Cain.  Voters want a genuine conservative in the White House who will set a conservative agenda and build a conservative majority.

Voters learned the hard way in 2008 that ideology does matter.  In this election year for the first time really since 1920 when you had the ultra conservative Warren Harding running against the Wilsonian Progressive James Cox, voters will be given a choice of two candidates with sharply different ideologies.  Who wins will decide the course of the nation for the next generation.  And this election could change as well how we select our candidates with ideology and policies finally trumping soundbidtes and good looks.