American Tories

David Brooks wrote a semi-interesting column yesterday summing up the Tories recent revival in UK's municipal elections representing a possible change for the GOP.

"The flow of ideas has changed direction. It used to be that American conservatives shaped British political thinking. Now the influence is going the other way.
The British conservative renovation begins with this insight: The central political 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 insufficient 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.”

Cameron describes a new global movement, with rising center-right parties in Sweden, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, California and New York (he admires Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg). American conservatives won’t simply import this model. But there’s a lot to learn from it. The only question is whether Republicans will learn those lessons sooner, or whether they will learn them later, after a decade or so in the wilderness. "

If there is a McCain victory this November (or defeat) it seems likely that the American conservatives might coincidently take this route. Its not hard to start imaging American conservatism to emmulate the book pictured below (for better or worse) in the near future.