a real alternative? the nick clegg phenomenon

by Sebastian Wright

Nick Clegg’s rise from shrinking violet of the political landscape to the ‘new Barack Obama’ (according to a Telegraph headline) can be attributed almost entirely to his performance in the the first British televised general election debate. With a foppish ‘I’m just a regular guy like you’ schtick that we have all been acquainted with since the early Blair,  Clegg’s only distinguishing rhetorical stance (we will get to substance in a minute) was his ‘I’m not like the other two’ line.

That apparently was enough to blow open the entire race. Albeit true that in terms of actual seats even Clegg’s phenomenal performance has not been enough to push the Liberal Democrats hypothetically beyond the 100 mark (compared to Labour who would still take around 280) in itself this has not dispelled the sense that Clegg has ‘shaken up’ the race. But the question is, surely, what and why are the media–and so it seems, the general population–getting so excited about this man?