Conservative Party

As Republicans gather this week in Houston, we hear much talk of conservatives and conservatism. Is George Bush a true conservative? Will conservatives support the President, or stay home? Is the movement intellectually exhausted? Who will emerge to lead conservatives in 1996? But these discussions all overlook one significant point: The Republicans are not really a conservative party. Indeed, we might say of American conservatism, as Mohandas K.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne, 89, a blunt-talking politician who founded Spain's ruling conservative party and was the last surviving minister from Gen. Francisco Franco's right-wing regime, died Sunday of heart failure at his Madrid home, according to the Spanish news agency Europa Press. In a career spanning 60 years, Fraga served as Franco's information and tourism minister and as Spain's interior minister after the dictator died in 1975. He helped write the country's post-Franco, democratic Constitution that was passed in 1978 when democracy was restored.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne, 89, a blunt-talking politician who founded Spain's ruling conservative party and was the last surviving minister from Gen. Francisco Franco's right-wing regime, died Sunday of heart failure at his Madrid home, according to the Spanish news agency Europa Press. In a career spanning 60 years, Fraga served as Franco's information and tourism minister and as Spain's interior minister after the dictator died in 1975. He helped write the country's post-Franco, democratic Constitution that was passed in 1978 when democracy was restored.

Salton Sea sense Re "Salton Sea battle," Nov. 20 I'm really getting tired of the "Salton Sea battle," especially in light of the billions in tax dollars needed to preserve the lake. It's time to do one of two things, both drastic. In heavy snow years, like last year and perhaps this year, find a way to flood the sea with freshwater from the Colorado River. That's how the sea was created almost 100 years ago. That, or stop trying to defeat nature and let it dry up, retuning it to the original ancient lake bed it was before its flooding.

The man leading a Conservative Party revolt in Parliament against a government plan to admit up to 250,000 immigrants from Hong Kong says he is concerned about a demographic shift in the United States that will "inevitably" drive the United States and Britain apart. "I'll be sorry to see the United States becoming a less Anglo-Saxon country, a less European country," Norman Tebbit, the former Cabinet minister and Conservative Party chairman, said in an interview.

Promising a just and dynamic new Britain, political modernizer Tony Blair led his restructured Labor Party to a landslide election victory of historic proportions here today. Five days short of his 44th birthday, Blair and his newly middle-of-the-road party dealt ruling Conservatives under Prime Minister John Major their worst defeat in more than a century. "You have put your trust in me, and I want to repay that trust.

Turkish voters rebuffed American ally President Turgut Ozal on Sunday, depriving his party of a third term and setting the stage for an opposition coalition government that has vowed to drive him from office. Mounting returns early today gave a lion's share of seats in the 450-member Turkish Parliament to the conservative True Path Party of four-time former prime minister Suleyman Demirel, but not enough to rule alone.

In this handsome, 18th-Century spa city, with its rows of honey-colored stone houses, the economic recession has bitten deeply, a factor that may determine the outcome of the national election campaign. Affluent Bath and other southern England communities that stretch along a light industrial corridor eastward to London prospered during Margaret Thatcher's years of Conservative government.

Britain's Conservative Party, one of the most enduring and successful political movements in the democratic world, on Tuesday began a long and uncertain road back from electoral defeat, internal division and a reputation tarnished by scandal. Favorite Kenneth Clarke led a five-man race to elect a party leader as successor to the defeated John Major but fell far short of victory in first-round balloting.

The Republicans are putting a lot of faith into the theory that Britain and the United States have far more in common this election year than two battered currencies, sex scandals in high places and a recession that won't go away. The new buzz phrase around the Bush-Quayle campaign staff is "the British scenario," otherwise known as the John Major miracle. For George Bush, the Major story must read like a fairy tale.

British Prime Minister David Cameron faced more questions about his judgment Tuesday amid reports that one of his top aides continued to receive money from the News of the World even after quitting the tabloid because of the phone-hacking scandal and signing up to work for the Conservative Party. Cameron hired Andy Coulson as the party's chief communications guru in 2007, shortly after Coulson stepped down as editor of the News of the World. His resignation followed the conviction and imprisonment of the newspaper's royal affairs reporter for illegally accessing voice mail messages left by Princes William and Harry.

The words "dramatic" and "Canadian election" seldom go together. Even Canadians are mostly bored by their politics, other than spikes of interest when Quebeckers vote on whether to separate from the rest of Canada (the last time: 16 years ago. Answer: a close "no") or the occasional election fought over more than just the spoils of power (probably not since 1988, when they voted, essentially, on whether to sign a free-trade agreement with the United States. Answer: a grudging "yes")

In another case of topsy-turvy political allegiances in Mexico, the conservative party of President Felipe Calderon on Monday appeared to have won the governorship of the state of Baja California Sur with a candidate who once was a former foe from the main leftist party. Marcos Covarrubias, who defected from the leftist party and ran as a candidate of the right-wing National Action Party, or PAN, won by six percentage points over his nearest competitor, according to preliminary results of Sunday's balloting, with votes from all polling places tallied.

Anthony Miller was a bit of a sensation when he was elected the Republican Party's district chairman in the comfortable suburbs of east Phoenix and Tempe. He was dedicated, conservative and the first African American ever to hold such a post in the state. But things began to fall apart, he figured, when he worked last year as a field organizer for Sen. John McCain, facing a primary challenge from the conservative wing of the party. At a campaign meeting in Kingman, a man formed his fingers into the shape of a gun and pointed at Anthony.

A new class of freshman lawmakers came to Capitol Hill on Monday to learn the ways of Washington ? while the conservative activists taking credit for sweeping them into office warned them not to learn Washington's ways too well. About 100 new lawmakers walked the halls of Congress for the first time since this month's election, many of them conservatives proud of their limited political experience and planning to shake up Washington. Two new members of the Senate ? Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia ?

The race to be the next governor of New York became a two-man heat Monday. In one of those the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend moments, Rick Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, took himself out of the running in order to give "tea party" favorite Carl Paladino a better shot at beating their Democratic rival, state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo. This month, Lazio lost badly to Paladino for the Republican nomination, yet kept his name on the ballot for the November election as the Conservative Party candidate.

The race to be the next governor of New York became a two-man heat Monday. In one of those the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend moments, Rick Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, took himself out of the running in order to give "tea party" favorite Carl Paladino a better shot at beating their Democratic rival, state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo. This month, Lazio lost badly to Paladino for the Republican nomination, yet kept his name on the ballot for the November election as the Conservative Party candidate.

British Prime Minister David Cameron gave his full backing Thursday to a top Cabinet minister who has denied rumors that he is gay and that he carried on a relationship with a young aide. Cameron said that Foreign Secretary William Hague enjoyed his "100% support" in spite of what some pundits are calling "the Hague affair" — and what Hague himself vigorously insists was a nonaffair. Hague, who is married, said in an unusually personal statement this week that any allegation of an "improper relationship" between him and Christopher Myers was "utterly false.