A good piece by Jonathan Freedland about the years of Tory misery that followed Blair's landslide election victory in 1997, and what the Republicans might learn from them. Three different leaders; two more election defeats...
Only then, staring oblivion in the face, did the slow stirrings of recovery begin. A senior Conservative official, Theresa May, had already warned that the Tories had to shed their image as "the nasty party" with few women or members of ethnic minorities in Parliament. Now, at last, that message began to be heard. A younger, fresher face emerged and overtook more established rivals for the leadership: David Cameron.
Mr. Cameron's candidacy was built on a simple premise: modernize or die. He told the Tories they had to look as if they actually liked the country they sought to govern, rather than wishing they could turn back time. They could not hope to form a winning coalition without appealing to the Britons whom Mr. Blair had made his own: women, suburbanites, the highly educated. Relying on angry old white men was never going to get the Conservatives much beyond 33 percent.
To that end, Mr. Cameron set about decontaminating the Tory brand. Central to that mission were forays into two areas of political terrain previously deemed forbidden zones. First, he signaled comfort with gay rights, ditching the party's previous support for laws restricting sexual equality. Second, he championed environmentalism. He may have endured news media mockery when he took a dogsled ride to inspect a Norwegian glacier in 2006, but it did the trick, confirming that the Tories were changing.
Mr. Cameron's efforts have paid off: recent polls suggest a Conservative victory at the next election. Of course, the lessons of one society can never fully apply to another. But the Tory experience suggests that a defeated party of the right has to move toward the center, abandon divisive social issues and elect a leader who looks as if he or she actually belongs in the 21st century. With Arnold Schwarzenegger ineligible for the presidency and no other accommodating figure on the horizon, the Republicans might have a bumpy decade ahead.
The Tory revival surely owes more to exhaustion with "New Labour" than to Cameron's rebranding, but Freedland is right that the Tories had to embrace moderation and centrism to become electable again. (The same was true of Labour, of course. After Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979, they were out of power for 18 years, choosing leaders true to the soul of the party, with far too little appeal to the center. Then came Blair.)
Shame about Schwarzenegger.
Paging Gov. Crist.; you're needed to rescue the Republican party; they need to get in touch with their gay/environmental side; and it's obvious that Sarah Palin's not the answer.
I think the Republicans need a bit more then that. I'd start with someone who understands that there has to be a connection between their words and their actions that adds up. Small government actually means small government. Compassion means compassion. Clear skies means clean air. No child left behind means educated children. Stuff like that.
My mom taught me honesty is the best policy. I find her values work work best in my home and business and I wish I found more often them in both politics and journalism.
(Funny thing about honesty -- it breeds tolerance and understanding.)
The Tory revival surely owes more to exhaustion with "New Labour" than to Cameron's rebranding
I profoundly hope that Mr. Crook's diagnosis for the center-right in the USA is how it plays out as democracy really needs alternatives represented by an opposition. As of now, The Republican party has become essentially exterminated in large swaths of the country. Of course, many now-Dems used to be Reps who were willing to abide the constant attention to the niche issues of the social conservatives as long as it delivered competent, limited government. As the presidency of GWB showed, however, that was no longer in the offing from the current Republican party more interested in federalizing the likes of the Terry Schiavo case and not handling disasters like Katrina/Rita. The Dems have capitalized on the exhaustion and mistakes of the Reps in the USA. Had the Bush administration not repeatedly hit the ball into the sand trap, it's quite conceivable that Obama stays in the Senate and Hillary Clinton flames out to a Republican candidate running to succeed Bush. HRC had driven out a lot of the competition from the Democratic field. Lest we forget she had VERY large negatives going into the election, and ones that were unlikely to change as she'd been on the national stage for many years. "A statesman... must wait until he hears the steps of God sounding through events, then leap up and grasp the hem of His garment." ---Bismarck
Of course, another Bismarck quote seems apropos: "There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America." So far our luck seems to be holding, but we need to keep our fingers crossed, perpetually.
Might be a bit of an opportunity here: to shed some of the xenophobic image while doing themselves some good. Why not proposed in the next Congress an Amendment to the Constitution to allow "naturalized citizens who have been citizens for at least 20 years" to serve as President or Vice President? [Or pick a different number of years, if you prefer. But 20 means the individual would have been a citizen about as long as a natural born citizen would have been an adult when he or she became eligible at age 35.]
Think of the joy of watching the Democrats try to figure out how to oppose it. And Hey, presto!, Arnold would then be eligible. (I'd mention that the requirement is a relic of the first few years of the country, when they were afraid that some Englishman would sneak in and undo the Revolution. Totally irrelevant today. But why confuse the issue with facts?)
Of course, the Republicans who are left in Congress are way too far right to ever go for such a thing. But it really is a pity that they won't.
Niall Ferguson drew the Republican-Tory parallel -- and forecast the Republican train wreck -- in August 2004.
bedrock conservative values will prevail, they just need a better spokesman, another reagan!
shame about schwarzenegger? i can see it now... each state of the union, addresses to the UN, talks with foreign leaders, all peppered with action hero lines. i live in california, thank god the country will be spared from his leadership.
The 'nasty party' is exactly the label I have been using for our Tories. Who isn't sick to death of listening to the nasty talk. Rush is the king of nasty.