An English lesson for Republicans

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.