From the sounds of it, President Barack Obama and the leader of the British Conservative Party had a fine time in their one-on-one meeting Wednesday.
David Cameron called it “excellent,” saying he and the American leader found “common ground” and a “wide range of agreement.”
It’s not surprising.
If the Republicans in the United States were more like their British counterparts, Obama would have been able to deliver on his promises of bipartisanship.
Indeed, as the GOP looks to reinvent itself after appalling losses last year, some Republicans are flirting with the Tory conservatism of Cameron and his team.
The strong conservatism of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990 hasn’t been the norm for British Tories since World War II. After Winston Churchill left the scene in 1955, conservatives there have mostly argued that they were the better administrators of the welfare state.
Both parties have largely agreed that Britain was in decline, but conservatives argued that they could provide a softer landing for the old empire. Cameron looks likely to knock off Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown a year from now on that very argument.
Managing decline has only rarely been a talking point for American Republicans.
Richard Nixon expanded the welfare state dramatically amid the unrest and uncertainty of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But during that last great period of American economic upheaval in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan brushed aside welfare Republicans to save his party and put his country on a path of growth and strength for 28 years.
Reagan knew that American conservatism has been about telling the government to go to hell.
While Thatcher was a final flowering of old Tory sensibilities about queen and country, her American counterpart, Reagan, restored his party’s bedrock beliefs after the ideological and ethical destruction brought on by Nixon.
George W. Bush famously offered a more compassionate brand of conservatism, but it mostly amounted to allowing Democrats to go ape on domestic spending in order to preserve funding for the Iraq war. The growth of the government under Bush is regarded as a failure, not an intentional departure.
From Abraham Lincoln to today, individualism and self-determination have been the Republicans’ guiding principles on domestic matters. And on foreign affairs, American exceptionalism has been the hallmark of the Republican view.
But now, in the shadow of the Bush presidency, another wilderness period is making Republicans reconsider their choices. Maybe it isn’t morning in America anymore. Perhaps it’s time to ride into the sunset on an accommodating horse.
Republicans like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are arguing that the time has come to fight the Democrats on their own turf — welfare and environmentalism.
Their position is that the world is too complex and the challenges facing America are so great that the battle over first questions — Should the government intervene in the economy? Is health care a constitutional right? — is over.
Under this approach, the Republicans would be the party with the right answers for the second questions. Who offers the leaner bailout? Which party has the most efficient, effective nationalized health plan?
On the other side are Republicans like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
They argue that the debate can be reframed yet again — that given a choice between an opportunity culture and a welfare state, voters still have the courage to choose self-determination.
But that approach assumes that what tax warrior Grover Norquist calls the “takings coalition” of government workers, special interests, lobbyists and unions isn’t yet a majority.
The Sanford-style Republicans assume that the moves by Obama to make America more European will fail, and voters will yearn for authentic conservatism.
But if Obama is successful, the Pawlenty/Schwarzenegger model may be all that Republicans can do. If the large-scale, rapid socialization Obama has undertaken goes into effect, arguing to dismantle it would sound about as practical as Ron Paul’s plea to return to the gold standard.
In Obamaland, Republicans would need a strong dose of political courage to roll back the comforts of the nanny state.
If Republicans are forced to stay in the wilderness for very long, British-style conservatism may come to be irresistible.
If Cameron is able to knock off Gordon Brown next year, Republicans may be looking rather longingly across the pond.
