The inestimable James Taranto reminds us brilliantly of the large number of prognosticators who were dead wrong about this Read it all, this is just a sample:

Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, last year published a quickie book, "The Death of Conservatism," based on a February 2009 piece in The New Republic. "As Tanenhaus sees it," National Public Radio's Robert Siegel explained in introducing an interview, "American conservatism has degenerated into a hollow echo-chamber of movement die-hards and talk show hosts, disconnected from the broad public, which until recently it spoke for."

NPR put the interview on its website under the headline "Author: Liberals Should Lament Conservatism's Death." This week's election results make clear beyond doubt that conservatism is alive and well. So liberals don't have to lament after all!

Of course, not all liberals were lamenting conservatism's putative death. In "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation," published in May 2009,James Carville gloated: "Republicans have no hope of making serious inroads into Democratic advantages in 2010, or likely in 2012 and 2014 and so on. It's time to call TOD on the GOP." We think TOD stands for "time of death."