Common wisdom says that the Democrats are going to lose big in November’s midterm elections.

Democrats in tight races have been doing everything in their power to distance themselves from their increasingly unpopular leaders. Tea Party activists have rejuvenated the anti-big government movement, capitalizing on the overwhelming unpopularity of the Obama administration’s major legislative accomplishments, including the stimulus bill and health care reform.

Even the White House has acknowledged that Republicans could reclaim their majority in the House of Representatives.

This is a crisis of Democrats’ own making.

In the midst of major economic uncertainty, they poured all of their energy into retooling the nation’s health care system against the clear wishes of the American public. Their “stimulus bill” was so stuffed with pork that not even the almost $1 trillion appropriated to that special interest triumph has been enough to foster a more than a tepid recovery.

It’s a shame that the Obama administration and its congressional allies made these two bills their signature issues because the anger they’ve engendered has obscured some of the more moderate, successful programs they’ve passed, like the Race to the Top Fund.

It should be a time of great optimism for conservatives everywhere. But as a registered Republican, I don’t feel any great hope. My party may well win big in November, but for what?

The Republican Party no longer has a coherent governing philosophy. Nor has a national leader emerged, like Newt Gingrich did in 1994, who has the gravitas to simultaneously oppose Obama and rally conservatives around a set of core principles.

The few who have tried—Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and others —have turned out to be far more interested in becoming celebrities than in bettering America. We deserve better.

This could be a golden era for American political discourse. In President Obama, welfare state liberalism has found a charming and eloquent spokesperson.

Should the conservatives field an impressive and articulate advocate of free markets and constitutional restraint to challenge the president, Americans would get to witness, for the first time in decades, a substantive philosophical debate.

Now wouldn’t that be something?

Nathaniel French is a senior theater major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].