By Ralph Reed

If one wants to know what is going to happen in November, the surest sign of which way the winds are blowing is primaries in the spring and summer. Obama’s startling defeat of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008, overcoming her money and endorsements and seeming inevitability, presaged the Democratic landslide in November. In 1994, it was the victories of Senate candidates like Oliver North in Virginia, pro-life Mike DeWine in Ohio and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania in GOP contests that foreshadowed a conservative wave at the polls, leading to the first Republican House majority in 40 years and only the second GOP majority in the Senate since Dwight Eisenhower.

The same phenomenon is unfolding now. What began as a Tea Party surge now has an interesting wrinkle: 2010 just might be the year of the conservative woman. Nikki Haley won nearly 50 percent of the vote in a crowded field in South Carolina in spite of an eleventh-hour flurry of personal attacks. She had been endorsed by Jenny Sanford and Sarah Palin, among others. While that race may go to a run-off, Haley is the likely GOP nominee and the next Governor of the Palmetto State. Ditto for Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada. The lamestream media parrots the Democratic spin that these results bode well for Harry Reid. Don’t believe it. Reid’s re-elect is in the low 40′s and polling has shown him losing to Angle. And how pathetic is it that the Senate Majority Leader has to pray for an allegedly weak GOP nominee, hoping to “win dirty” in his own home state?! It speaks to how truly weak and desperate the Democrats are heading into the fall.

Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman’s victories in California also show the appeal of a conservative woman at the polls. Though Whitman is far more socially liberal than Fiorina, she won on the conservative themes of reining in government spending and creating jobs by lowering taxes. Fiorina waxed liberal former Congressman Tom Campbell, whose only message at the end could be summed up, “I can win.” He didn’t. Fiorina also had the support of Sarah Palin and the Susan B. Anthony List and won going away.

Nor are these high profile victories the only signs of a conservative woman’s moment. Earlier, Susanna Martinez overcame a spending disadvantage to win the Republican nomination for Governor in New Mexico. If victorious in November she will join Marco Rubio as a rising Hispanic star on the national stage. Anna Little, mayor of Highlands in Monmouth county, leads for the GOP nomination in New Jersey’s Sixth Congressional district. Little had the backing of Tea Party activists, Faith and Freedom Coalition (which I founded last year), and Building a New Majority, a New Jersey group focused on ground game and turnout. Little’s margin stands at only 65 votes, so there may be a recount. Assuming she holds on, she will face Frank Pallone, Jr., one of the most liberal members of Congress, in the fall.

There are many women candidates in later primaries that will join these victors on the general election ballot. But women were not the only winners. Tea Party-endorsed Tom Graves won a hotly contested special election in the strongly Republican Ninth District of Georgia to replace former Congressman Nathan Deal in a race that pitted many party establishment figures against grassroots activists. Scott Rigell, a Regent University alumnus and successful businessman, won in Virginia’s Second congressional district, backed by Pat Robertson and Governor Bob McDonnell, among others. He faces Glenn Nye in one of the most high profile House races in the nation, a must win if the Republicans hope to win control of the House.

One of the clear winners yesterday was Sarah Palin. The liberal media wrote her obituary after the 2008 elections, but she has emerged as one of the most influential political figures in the country. Not every candidate she has endorsed this year has won, but her support played a critical role in validating the candidacies of Nikki Haley and Carly Fiorina.

Politics is a little like physics. Every action causes a reaction. The election of a multi-ethnic, liberal president in 2008 has now sparked a conservative, limited government, pro-family counter-reaction, clad in lipstick and pumps.