Word: cameronism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Actually, Cameron has more in common with a certain British pol than he does with J.F.K. Whether nodding sagely to recovering drug addicts at a rehab center north of Aberdeen or charming Scottish journalists on the serpentine train journey to Edinburgh, the person whom Cameron resembles more than any other is a young Blair. He has the same brow-furrowing desire not only to understand his interlocutors but to empathize with them; the same rootless accent that in Britain indicates an easy start in life (in his case, school days at Eton and a degree from Oxford). And like Blair...
...time might be ripe for Cameron. Blair has said he'll step down before the fall. His presumptive successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, is saddled by a more leaden style, a darker visage and a government that is losing popularity, largely because of the mess in Iraq. But Brown does not have to call an election until 2010, so Cameron can't rely on the war to deliver 10 Downing Street to him. Every second week he makes a foray from what he calls "the Westminster bubble" to some farther-flung outpost of the kingdom, meeting as many...
...That's where the trouble begins. It's easy enough to locate Cameron's heart; that's with his family. He and Samantha have three children under 5 - the eldest is severely disabled - and he says he spends most of his home life "knee-deep in nappies and wailing children." When his staff urged him to start his trip to Scotland early because of a forecast of gales, Cameron refused, insisting he had to put his children to bed. The wellsprings of his political conviction are harder to trace. If a Kennedy inspires him, it's Bobby, the "wonderful orator...
...Many Tories of Cameron's generation believe that their party needs to reclaim the middle ground so brilliantly colonized by Blair and distance itself from the fiercely ideological course it charted during the Thatcher era. "We're seen as the nasty party," says Barker. To revamp that image, Cameron has engaged in conspicuously un-Tory-like behavior, traveling widely and posting a confessional blog at www.webcameron.org.uk. He's promoting a doctrine he calls "modern, compassionate Conservatism," which is "about helping those people who can get left behind." In a nod to a nation where opposing global warming has become...
...That sort of talk has worried some of the party faithful, but Cameron wants his big ideas to appeal across party lines. "You have to do what Bill Clinton did and build a big tent," says Dale, paying respect to a man whom an older generation of Conservatives dismissed as a pot-smoking, skirt-chasing lefty. But even Dale would like Cameron to signal to traditional Tories that "the old issues will be treated as seriously as the new ones." That might mean an overt reiteration of the Tories' traditional claim to be the party of low taxation. Or - always...