Losing the election seems to have really shaken the American conservative movement deeply and the most significant long term effect, that I perceive, is watching some important, born again, wooly-evangelicals slowly morphing into what, in Europe, would be classified as Christian-Democrats.

It might be that the descendents of people who voted for William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long and FDR may again be susceptible to the “populist” messages of Democrats bearing “gifts.”

Social Security is one of those topics that most people think they know about. Everyone“knows” Social Security is “going bankrupt,” that the government “raided the trust fund,” and that “it won’t be there when we retire.” These folks include both the ideologues determined to dismember the program and the casual consumers of mainstream media, which has been largely content to write he-said, she-said stories giving equal weight to the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration and“experts” wearing tin-foil hats.

But there’s a potentially more dangerous cohort than the Fox-educated crowd out there, says Eric Laursen.

Branding is not everything in politics, it is important.

In the sea of Sarah Palin books that have been released since she slammed into the national consciousness, Blind Allegiance is unique. With access to the woman, the gubernatorial candidate, the governor, the VP candidate and the quitter, Frank Bailey was a true insider. He showed up at Palin campaign headquarters literally on Day One with a paintbrush and a mop. By virtue of his loyalty and work ethic, he played an integral role in her campaign, and rose in the ranks to become Palin’s powerful Director of Boards and Commissions during her administration as Governor.

Midway through his presidency, when Bob Woodward about how history would judge the War in Iraq, George W. Bush responded: “History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Instead, in a 2006 essay in Rolling Stone, the prominent historian Sean Wilentz argued that a substantial majority of U.S. historians already considered the Bush administration to be a “failure” (81% in a poll conducted by the History News Network). Wilentz predicted that Bush would “be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.”

Chairman of the Republican Party Michael Steele made some awkward comments about Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, irking the right wing. With reaction from the left no better, we see that the War in Afghanistan is simply not a left/right issue at all.

There has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to label themselves as “conservatives” according to a new report from Gallup.

Threats to private healthcare insurers? Single payer leading to socialism? As the House and Senate move further in on their dissection of healthcare reform, we had our own house call from Dr. Howard Dean.