9, 2008 For years, American and British poli- tics were in sync. Reagan came in roughly the same time as Thatcher, and Clinton’s Third Way approach mirrored Blair’s. But the British conservatives never had a Gingrich revolution in the 1990s or the Bush victories thereafter. They got their losing in early, and, in the wilderness, they rethought modern con- servatism while their American coun- terparts were clinging to power. Today, British conservatives are on the way up, while American conserva- tives are on the way down. British con- servatives have moved beyond Thatch- erism, while American conservatives pine for another Reagan. The British Conservative Party enjoyed a series of stunning victories in local elections last week, while polls show American voters thoroughly rejecting the Republican brand. The flow of ideas has changed di- rection. It used to be that American con- servatives shaped British political thinking. Now the influence is going the other way. The British conservative renovation begins with this insight: The central po- litical debate of the 20th century was over the role of government. The right stood for individual freedom while the left stood for extending the role of the state. But the central debate of the 21st century is over quality of life. In this new debate, it is necessary but insuffi- cient to talk about individual freedom. Political leaders have to also talk about, as one Tory politician put it, “the whole way we live our lives.” That means, first, moving beyond the Thatcherite tendency to put economics first. As Oliver Letwin, one of the lead- ing Tory strategists put it: “Politics, once econo-centric, must now become socio-centric.” David Cameron, the Con- servative Party leader, makes it clear that his primary focus is sociological. Last year he declared: “The great chal- lenge of the 1970s and 1980s was eco- nomic revival. The great challenge in this decade and the next is social re- vival.” In another speech, he argued: smaller, decentralized and interactive. They want a greater variety of schools, with local and parental control. They want to reverse the trend toward big central hospitals. Health care, Cameron says, is as much about regular long- term care as major surgery, and pa- tients should have the power to con- struct relationships with caretakers, pharmacists and local facilities. Cameron also believes government should help social entrepreneurs scale up their activities without burdening them with excessive oversight. This focus means that Conservatives talk not only about war and G.D.P., but also the softer stuff. There’s been more emphasis on environmental issues, ci- vility, assimilation and the moral cli- mate. Cameron has spent an enormous amount of time talking about marriage, families and children. Some of his ideas would not sit well with American conservatives. He wants to create 4,200 more health visitors, who would come into the homes of new par- ents and help them manage day-to-day stress. But he also talks about rewriting the tax code to make it more family friendly, making child care more ac- cessible, and making the streets safer. Some of this is famously gauzy, and Cameron is often disdained as a mere charmer. But politically it works. The Tory modernization project has pro- duced stunning support in London, the southern suburbs, the Welsh heartlands and the ailing north. It’s not only that voters are tired of Labor. The Conserva- tives have successfully “decontaminat- ed” their brand. They’re offering some- DAVID BROOKS The Conservative Revival No, not here. Across the Atlantic. The fight for the Democratic nomina- tion seems to be winding down. It’s not completely over, but the odds now over- whelmingly favor Barack Obama. Assuming that Mr. Obama is the nomi- nee, he’ll lead a party that, judging by the usual indicators, should be poised for an easy victory — perhaps even a landslide. Yet Democrats are worried. Are those worries justified? Before I try to answer that question, let’s talk about those indicators. Political scientists, by and large, be- lieve that what happens on the campaign trail, while it gives talking heads some- thing to talk about, is more or less irrele- vant to what happens on Election Day. Instead, they place their faith in statis- tical analyses that identify three main de- terminants of presidential voting. First, votes are affected by the state of the economy — mainly economic per- formance in the year or so preceding the election. Second, the approval rating of the cur- rent president strongly affects his party’s ability to hold power. Third, the electorate seems to suffer from an eight-year itch: parties rarely manage to hold the White House for more than two terms in a row. This year, all of these factors strongly favor the Democrats. Indeed, the Demo- cratic Party hasn’t enjoyed this favorable a political environment since 1964. Rob- ert Erikson, a political scientist at Colum- bia, tells me: “It would be difficult to find any serious indicator that does not point to a Democratic victory in 2008.” What about polls that still seem to give John McCain a good chance of winning? Pay no attention, say the experts: gen- eral election polls this early tell you al- most nothing about what will happen in November. Remember 1992: as late as PAUL KRUGMAN Thinking About November By Susan Faludi SAN FRANCISCO NOTABLE in the Indiana and North Carolina primary re- sults and in many recent polls are signs of a change in the gender weather: white men are warming to Hillary Clinton — at least enough to vote for her. It’s no small shift. These men have historically been her fiercest antagonists. Their conversion may point less to a new kind of male voter than to a new kind of female vote-getter. Pundits have been quick to attribute the to her new role with a Thelma-like relish. We are witnessing a female competitor delighting in the undomesticated fray. Her new no-holds-barred pugnacity and glee- ful perseverance have revamped her im- age in the eyes of begrudging white male voters, who previously saw her as the sanctioning “sivilizer,” a political Aunt Polly whose goody-goody directives made them want to head for the hills. It’s the unforeseen precedent of an un- precedented candidacy: our first major fe- male presidential candidate isn’t doing what men always accuse women of doing. She’s not summoning the rules committee over every infraction. (Her attempt to re- write the rules for Michigan and Florida are less a timeout than rough play.) Not once has she demanded that the umpire stop the fight. Indeed, she’s asking for more unregulated action, proposing a de- bate with no press-corps intermediaries. If anyone has been guarding the rules this election, it’s been the press, which has KIM BOST The Fight Stuff Nxxx,2008-05-09,A,027,Bs-BW,E2
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