Across the nation, Democrats are arguing about how to make their party more electable. The answer to their question actually arrived in Washington last week and stood next to George W. Bush at the White House, flashing a toothy smile.
Back in 1992, Tony Blair inherited a Labor Party in far deeper trouble than the Democrats are in today. His opponents in the Conservative Party -- the most successful political machine of the 20th century -- had just won their fourth straight election. People thought there would never be another Labor government.
Today, however, Labor rules the roost. The Tories have been forced back into the rural shires, and the average age of their membership is in the 70s. Blair is likely to see his huge majority shrink as a result of the Iraq war in the next election, but nobody expects him to lose it.
Blair troubles Democrats in the United States because he symbolizes the gap in their party. The Michael Moore wing, for instance, views him as a traitor for joining the Iraq coalition and helping Bush steal another election. But Blair's achievement is not one that Democrats can afford to ignore at the moment because he has shown far more willingness than the Democrats to confront his opponents' strengths and limit his own weaknesses.
Blair's first lesson for Democrats is one that Bill Clinton never quite managed to teach them: You cannot be too close to the center. In Britain, Blair embarked on a series of gestures so dramatic that middle England -- our Peoria -- realized Labor had changed. He embraced privatization, upheld his promise to not raise the rate of income taxes, made the Bank of England independent of the government and ignored teachers' protests about introducing standards testing.
The Democrats desperately need a similar display. One possibility might be embracing school vouchers (which poor blacks want, even if teachers don't); another would be Social Security reform (something has to be done, sooner rather than later); yet another might be denouncing partial-birth abortion (which is opposed by many people who regard themselves as pro-choice). Forget all the Mooreish nonsense about fighting as hard for the left half of the country as Bush does for the right. That won't help.
