Nb. The political systems in the UK and USA are sufficiently different to render any comparison between events either side of the pond entirely pointless.
I am not a member or supporter of the labour party in the UK, but when Tony Blair became Prime Minister I nearly cried with joy and relief. I know that every surface dweller here at DK has felt similar emotions recently, pity you have to wait 2 months for Obama to get his key to the Whitehouse.
I also know that it will not last forever. The important thing then is that just as a permanent republican majority could not survive political reality, neither will (or should) a democratic one. The question is then, what form will the GOP re-emerge in.
Kosman the DemLibertarian wanted the democrats "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women". This fate befell the British Conservative party. It has taken them 10 years to rebuild itself from a minority party obsessed with Europe, immigration, social conservatism and tax cuts,isolated in its southern rural heartland, to the one nation, socially liberal, conservatives that can once again challenge for power in most parts of England at least.
When Tony Blair entered Downing Street as PM, the thudding beats of "Things can only get better" still thumping in our ears, the actual policy commitments of New Labour were alarmingly thin. There were only 5 things that the Labour Party had pledged to do.
Cut class sizes to 30 or under for those aged five, six and seven; fast track punishment for persistent young offenders; cut NHS waiting lists by treating an extra 100,000 patients; get 250,000 under 25-year-olds off benefit and into work; set tough rules for government spending and borrowing, ensure low inflation and strengthen the economy.
Have these essentially technocratic policies, succeeded in dragging the centre of British politics back to the Left? The tories no longer concern themselves (publicly) with the gay age of consent, they welcome and promote candidates from ethnic minorities, they do not dispute the need for a well funded health service and they have eased off on putting tax cuts before public services. But was demonstrating slightly better, more efficient management of the government enough to bring the tories back to the centre?
The tide of social progressive change seems pretty inevitable, with only occasional reverses and occasional excesses. The republicans now have a choice, the same choice that confronted the Tories and a choice that took them nearly 10 years to make. Accept the changes and find new ground on which to contest or reject them and stay irrelevant. Labour has forced them to make these decisions by passing legislation. Just as wedge issues worked in a conservative era to bring out the base, in a liberal/progressive era they can be used to isolate and define the conservatives as old, out of touch, mean spirited, nasty. It was when the conservatives realised they did not want to be the nasty party any more that they elected David Cameron with his woolly soft aspirational brand of politics over the old school right wing David Davis to be their 5th leader since Thatcher (apropos of nothing McCain - Palin were compared to Heath - Thatcher on ITV this morning. Whatever one thinks of Thatcher she definitely had more brains and ability than that stuffed skirt).
In four years time Obama will have demonstrated that he is not a socialist, a marxist, a terrorist or an islamist. He will be the most experienced person running for president. If he has been a better manager of government (and how can he be worse), he will be re-elected in a landslide that makes today look close by comparison. But will he have helped reconstruct the GOP?
What buttons can Obama and the blue congress push to make the GOP return to the centre, to rationality and pragmatism? The Schiavo affair sticks in my mind, make the GOP oppose an act that would prevent such a travesty ever happening again? Gays in the military, I think the US can handle it now. Federally recognised civil partnerships for gay couples, give the GOP apoplexy. Stem cell research, end abstinence only sex education, the list is endless. These will change America more than good governance will and when the pendulum swings hopefully its access will have been permanently shifted a good few degrees to the left.