A week ago, most people in Britain considered
Nick Clegg, the "
little-known leader" of the Liberal Democrats to be, by all measures, a long shot to become Britain's next prime minister. But that was before "
Cleggmania" swept the country.
The origins of Cleggmania can be traced to last week's televised debate -- a first in Great Britain -- in which Clegg was widely considered to have
stolen the show from the leaders of Britain's two largest political parties: current Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron. The headline the next day in the
London Times read "Clegg comes of age." A poll taken after the debate led the
Guardian to
declare that "Clegg is now in contention as potential PM."
To top it off, the latest
YouGov poll shows the Liberal Democrats to now be in the lead with 34 percent of the vote. The Conservative Party came in second with 31 percent. A week ago the Liberal Dems were hovering around 16 percent. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish referred to the poll result as "
th earthquake in Britain." John Curtice of the
Independent has called the Liberal Dems' surge "
the biggest shock to the electoral landscape in years."
The hype around Clegg is so great that a writer for the Guardian has even taken to asking if Clegg is "
the British Obama." They even mocked up a great photomontage of the famous Obama "Hope" poster featuring Clegg, which you can see
here. (For the record, Clegg has also drawn comparisons to Winston Churchill and, the NYT's Lede blog
notes, Jesus.)
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/nick-clegg-cleggmania-swe_n_546192.html