Last week's British election was important as much for what didn't happen as for what did. The opposition Conservative Party won the most votes, but it didn't win a clear majority of seats in Parliament. The third-party Liberal Democrats, who hoped to surge into second place ahead of the deflated Labor government, fell short. As British television pundits noted, it was a reverse trifecta: All three parties lost.
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All politics is local, of course, but Britain's grouchy electorate sent a message that has echoes in the rest of Europe and even the United States: Voters aren't looking for massive change right now; they're looking for leaders who can find a safe way out of a deep economic crisis that never seems to end.
Thirty years ago, when Ronald Reagan won an election in the United States on the heels of Margaret Thatcher's victory in Britain, it was possible to talk about a wave of conservative politics sweeping the Western world — especially since Reagan and Thatcher shared a common passion for downsizing the liberal welfare state. Thirteen years ago, when Tony Blair's modernized Labor Party won its first majority in Britain, Blair and Bill Clinton talked grandly about their "Third Way," a loosely shared approach to governing from the center.
But this year, politics in the United States and Europe seem distinctly out of sync.
When Barack Obama won the presidency amid popular enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic, European social democrats hoped that the Democrats' success meant their time had come too. That didn't happen; Europe has seen no swing to the left. Indeed, if Britain's Tories form the next government in London, Western Europe's four biggest countries — Britain, Germany, France and Italy — will all have conservative leaders for the first time in decades. At the next U.S.-European summit, Obama will be the odd man out.flower
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