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It would be virtually impossible for the left to ignore the resentment among the people of heartland America that is currently simmering and threatens to soon come to a boil. The realization of the grave consequences of the liberal/socialist juggernaut, at the core of the "hope and change" rhetoric of the past year, is clearly motivating real America to take a stand for the sake of the country.

Those Democrats who had expected to ram through an agenda that would fundamentally alter the makeup of the nation are finding out that their task may not be so easy as initially expected. Admittedly, too many conservatives had pulled their punches during the past eight years in deference to President Bush, who all too often used his position to undermine his supporters, while trying in vain to find common ground with the opposition.

But now, with Bush gone and the Democrats holding both houses of Congress as well as the White House, few conservatives outside of Washington are feeling any need to soft-peddle their concerns in order to maintain coherency with GOP "moderates." Recognizing the need to play political hardball with an increasingly militant liberal ruling class, the conservative base no longer has any intention of being restrained by the failed appeasement tactics of the Republican Party establishment.

Unfortunately, that very Republican establishment may be the last group to figure this out. Far too many of its key players remain wedded to the idea of "bipartisanship" with a Democrat machine that clearly intends to dismantle the very precepts of America's greatness. In a twisted variation of the "half-full/half-empty" conundrum, many among the GOP inner circle continue to embrace the very concepts that have infuriated voters and spelled electoral disaster for Republicans in the past two elections.

When seeking to establish a political strategy, it is crucial to understand that the beauty-queen syndrome, by which all newly elected presidents reap a brief boost in public opinion polls, bears no correlation to the national popularity of any program or new policy. This is particularly true in the case of Obama, whose media-driven numbers soared briefly into the stratosphere, but merely represented an emotional reaction to the novelty of a new and "politically correct" chief executive. But as the dismal reality of his ideological inclination sets in, his numbers have plummeted almost as dramatically as they had risen.

In truth, this drop in the public opinion polls is far more significant than the previous rise, given that it is occurring in the midst of an ongoing orgy of media sycophancy that has not ceased since the day he received the Democrat nomination. Yet inside the Beltway, even among those in Obama's own camp, the turning tide of public sentiment has not gone unnoticed, even if it is still wrongly interpreted.

Amid all of the media accolades, America may have become smitten with Obama's supposedly smooth style, and it may have briefly bought into all of the self-congratulatory rhetoric of some supposed triumph over past racial disparities (though the treatment of race in this whole episode by the left actually reflects a tasteless retrograde focus on quotas to a far greater degree than representing any noble societal milestone). But, day-by-day, the relevance of the racial tokenism and overblown media assertions of his legendary charisma recede in importance, and the significance of the policies of Barack Obama and the Democrats advance excruciatingly towards center stage.

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