...(such as it is) should be a lesson for Republicans in America: to regain power, move to the center. After 13 years in the wilderness (and being known in the UK as the "nasty party"), the Conservatives have retaken Number 10 Downing Street by moderating their platform. Surprised? We shouldn't be. After all, Tony Blair did the same thing for Labour back in the 1990s.
Are there any parallels in America? Sure. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and now Obama all ran (and/or governed) as centrists. Centrists win elections because they capture the broad center of the electorate. Sound painfully obvious? It should be, but today's Republicans don't seem to be getting the message. They think the path back to power is by becoming more and more extreme. It would be hard, in fact, to imagine a 2012 GOP presidential nominee that wasn't from the base. How well does that work out in practice? Well, let's see; Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, and Walter Mondale all got crushed. True, Ronald Reagan won twice, but it could be argued that after the '81 tax cut, the Gipper governed mostly from the center. (George W. Bush? The less said about him, the better.)
But just as trying to reason with an alcoholic is pointless, so is trying to advise a political party that's hell-bent on its own destruction. And just as an alcoholic needs to hit rock bottom before recovery can take place, so must political parties need to hit rock bottom every so often before they can remake themselves into credible contenders. After nominating Stevenson twice, the Democrats turned to Kennedy; after Goldwater, the GOP went with Nixon; after McGovern, Carter; and after Mondale, the Democrats formed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, which brought us Clinton and Gore.
Back to today's Republicans. Will the GOP take a page from the Cameron playbook and nominate someone from the center in 2012? Don't count on it. For one thing, it would be next to impossible to come up with a moderate Republican name. Also, the GOP is still in denial. After a year and a half of just saying no, they think they're on the right track. And in the midterms, as the party out of power, they should regain seats in Congress. The Republicans may even retake the House; it's unlikely they will win back the Senate. The base will probably misinterpret the results as a mandate, however, and nominate someone who's far right in 2012. Only after getting annihilated will the party elders look around at all the carnage and say to each other (like Blair and Cameron before them), "Maybe we should try something different. Maybe we should--gulp!--move to the center." Then a new generation of moderate Republicans can emerge and America will once again have a two party system.
That would be great, because I'd like my country back, too.
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I think what's interesting about Britian though is that it is a multi-party system because of the parliamentary system. This approach to democracy seems to make a big difference in terms elections and governance. The need for cross party alliances not only strips away the cult of personality that dominates the head of state position but also seems like it encourages participation because voters know that even if their party leader can't win they could potentially become a major player in the post election coalition building.
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