US advice for UK tories?

[britspin]

So, Britain's Conservatives have lost three elections in a row by wide margins, while US Conservatives are in control of the Presidency, Senate and House of representatives.

So what advice would Karl Rove give the UK tories? What advice would you give?

[Hofzinser]

My advice to the Tories would be to torture Karl Rove slowly to death before disbanding.

My British advice would be too hire that Tony Blair chap who stole all their ideas from them.
Or select someone half electable like Ken Clark.

[Felix_Nietsche]

So, Britain's Conservatives have lost three elections in a row by wide margins, while US Conservatives are in control of the Presidency, Senate and House of representatives.
So what advice would Karl Rove give the UK tories? What advice would you give?
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A US conservative is very different from a European conservative. I'm not exactly sure how a typical Tory compares with a US conservative but I suspect there are less conservative.

Lets agree upon some definitions.
Conservative: One that believes that a smaller, LESS active govt is best for the people.
Liberal: One that believes that a MORE active govt is best for a people.
Obviously you can have hybrids. E.g. Fiscal conservative and a social liberal.
The fight between conservatism and liberalism is largely a fight between those that want govt to give them safety/security and those who want freedom (especially economic).


Short Answer:
1. Get your message out that a smaller, less, intrusive govt will benefit everyone. And keep the message very positive and upbeat. After all, the cold war proved that Adam Smith won and Karl Marx Lost. We KNOW the capitalist system is the best system on earth. We KNOW govt excess control/regulation hurts a economy. Russia learned this the hard way and Europe has opted for a socialist 'lite' system. Most of all, you need eloquent leaders that express this message. The last upbeat leader you had was Margaret Thatcher. Some may call the highly regulated economy in Europe, ‘capitalism’, but I just see it as socialist-lite. The liberal counter strategy is to spread envy. If a typical worker gets a 5% increase due to a strong economy while the rich get a 15% increase then the liberal will try to persuade the worker he is getting screwed over. The would rather see a 3%/2% increase than a 5%/15% increase.

2. Fight the biasness in the media.
Your BBC is terribly biased. We had the same problem here in the USA but talk radio, cable news (Fox News), and the internet have discredited our equivalent of the BBC (ABC/NBC/CBS). If anything ABC/NBC/CBS have become less biased the last 15 years. Although they definitely STILL sympathize with the Democrat party and selectively choose ‘news’ which helps the democrats. The biggest change is they have had to tone down there biasness. The USA has people like Rush Limbaugh ( www.rushlimbaugh.com ) and an army of conservative radio personalities have been very successful in combating the propaganda from the liberal media. If you have an iPod, subscribe to Rush 24/7 and download his radio show. He is on 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and he has been broadcasting for about 20 years. I think a subscription is $50 a year and you get a GREAT and entertaining mini-magazine which has things that all liberals fear…..FACTS. He is very upbeat and entertaining. He is also extremely sharp in analyzing US politics. This man REVOLUTIONIZED American am radio and deserves a lot of credit for turning the tide in media biasness in the USA. He may give you ideas that the tories can adopt.

3. Study the history how American Conservatism was able to reverse the tide of liberalism in the USA. Believe me this was a long and VERY uphill battle. Some of the conservative political heros are:
*Barry Goldwater (he lost the 1964 election)
*Jimmy Carter (he screwed things up so bad it got Reagan elected)
*Ronald Reagan
*Newt Gingrich (his “Contract With America” program won the House and Senate for the Republicans.

4. Wait for an opening.
It was Jimmy Carter’s mess of the economy that created the opening for American conservatives. Tony Blair seems like a good politician and I’m not so sure how much he promotes a free economy. If he promotes a SEMI-free economy, then he is only making a small mistake, which is hard to exploit. What you need is for some labor fool to OVER- regulate the economy and screw things up BIG TIME. Eventually all liberal politicians do this. They don’t have the discipline to let a capitalistic economy worked its magic.


For most of the early history of the USA (1780-1930), the USA had a conservative govt.
The 1929 stock market crash changed everything. People became desperate and FDR was able to make people think he could fix things. He could not improve the economy but WW2 did and FDR undeservedly got the credit for the good economy (Hitler deserves more credit because he started the war. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]). So from 1930-1979 the liberals largely controlled the agenda and they were able to implement a lot of liberal ideology because of the older generation’s worship of FDR. From 1980-2005, the conservatives were able to stop and make SOME reverses of the liberal march. First was Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and then the capture of the House/Senate in 1990. The Bush41/Bush43 presidencies have been a mixed blessing for conservatives. There is a man from Virginia named GEORGE ALLEN who I have VERY, VERY, VERY high hopes for. If he becomes president we republicans may have another Ronald Reagan. From what I’ve heard so far, I’m VERY impressed!

[britspin]

Felix,

thanks for that post- really interesting.

Disclosure- I'm a member of the Labour party, so my interest is not entriely positive.

I think There's a very interesting point you make about the depth of the conservative "movement" in the US- both as a response to successful New Deal/Great society liberalism, and as a positive political movement with defined goals (lower tax, stronger military, pro business/corporate agenda).

I thin part of the problem for Conservatives here is that they haven't done much of the intellectual heavy lifting that's required to make that case- I read "before the Storm"- an account of the Goldwater campaign and was impressed by how intellectual much of the roots of movement conservatism was.

Of course, they had to moderate and adapt from the more out there elements of the agenda (after all, Bush ran as a compassionate conservative- i can't see Goldwater doing that!) but the philosophical roots were there.

Here on the other hand, it feels as if the conservatives simply adopt whatever fad is in the political air at the moment- oddly enough- this is what people accuse Blair of doing, but I think he's been very consistently a political progressive centrist- which you may not agree with, but he's always been quite dedicated to that idea.

So I suspect that one of the things British conservatism lacks is the intellectual drive that marked the first flowerings of the conservative movement...

[Felix_Nietsche]

while US Conservatives are in control of the Presidency, Senate and House of representatives.
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Of the three branches of govt of the USA the power is as follows:

1. Presidency: Republican

2. Legislative: Slight Republican edge but it is really a Mexican stand off.
The republicans control the house but it takes 60 votes to control the senate. There are only 55 republicans in the senate (total 100 senators) and at least 5 of the republicans are completely unreliable votes. In effect, the Democrats can play 100% defense in the senate and block everything the republicans try to do.

3. Judicial Branch: Democrats.
Although the republicans have appointed most of the current members of the Supreme Court there is a tendency for moderate conservatives to become an activist the longer they stay on the bench. I suppose the temptation of all that power is too much so many supreme court members turn to the “dark side” and make decisions based on their personal views of the world rather than honoring their oaths to uphold the constitution of the USA. This branch is out of control. California voters passed prop 187 which sought to eliminate almost all govt handouts to ILLEGAL immigrants. It would seem like common sense that ILLEGAL immigrants should be deported and not eligible for any benefits. Instead an activists judge struck down this proposition.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Disclosure- I'm a member of the Labour party, so my interest is not entriely positive.
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LOL........I guess you won't be checking out Rush Limbaugh. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[britspin]

[ QUOTE ]
Disclosure- I'm a member of the Labour party, so my interest is not entriely positive.
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LOL........I guess you won't be checking out Rush Limbaugh. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh I've read his website a few times. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

Got to say, I prefer the national review for my right wingwackiness! After all, the man is a three times divorced drug addict and I'm a big beleiver in family values!