My Comments: This article comes from the Financial Times. This is a UK publication that probably can be described as more left of center than right. Not only do they have good ideas, it’s often helpful to get the perspective from people who do not live and breathe in this country. While it’s normal to think that your ideas are far and away the best ideas on the planet, that attitude has over the centuries, resulted in a lot of bloodshed. So for me, I like to hear what other people are saying and thinking.

By Philip Stephens

It is pretty much an iron rule of politics that those bidding for high office should share a nation’s sense of itself. Parties out of sympathy with the values and instincts of citizens usually condemn themselves to long spells of opposition. This happened a few years ago to Britain’s Conservative party. America’s Republicans seem to striking out in the same direction.

The response of the Tories to Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory was to lurch to the right. The Conservatives became a flag-waver for the antis – anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-personal choice and anti-Europe. When you added it all up, they really did not like what they called “broken Britain”. The voters returned the compliment, backing Mr Blair’s relentless optimism in three consecutive elections.

Things got so bad that people who supported a particular policy stance when presented in a “blind” test instantly rejected it when told it had been authored by the Tories. It was not until 2005, when David Cameron assumed the leadership that the party faced up to the fact that the Tory brand had become toxic.

Something similar is happening to the Republicans. After Mitt Romney’s strong showing in the first of the televised debates, the presidential election may not be over. The economy is on Mr Romney’s side, and the media will certainly do its best to keep the contest alive. There are though some important structural foundations holding up Barack Obama’s opinion poll lead. One is about US demography; the other, less often remarked upon, tracks the changing mores of American society.

The demographic tide running against the Republicans has been well documented. Mr Romney’s support is rooted in the white working class, particularly in southern states. This group has a shrinking share of the vote. Hispanics, by far the fastest-rising segment of the population, are overwhelmingly in Mr Obama’s camp. The last Pew Research Centre polling figures show that Hispanics break by about 70 per cent to 25 per cent in the president’s favour.

There is nothing inevitable about this. Many Hispanics share the Republican attachment to family life and to traditional social values. Many run small businesses and see the Republicans as friendlier on issues such as tax and regulation. Mr Romney’s problem is his party’s hardening hostility to immigration. To satisfy the Republican base, he is backing draconian anti-immigration measures, including the deportation of illegal immigrants.
With some 800,000 young illegals facing the threat of expulsion – many of them sons, daughters and cousins of settled immigrants – it is scarcely surprising Hispanics have moved into the Democratic camp. Mainstream Republicans warn that without a change of policy on immigration, the demographics will condemn the party to permanent exile from the White House. The Democrats have won a bigger share of the popular vote in four out of five of the last presidential elections.

The Republicans are also losing the culture wars. A few years ago, hardline conservatism on issues such as gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research was judged an election winner. Karl Rove built George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign around a clutch of social issues. Mr Rove synchronised the re-election bid with a nationwide campaign for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

I remember interviewing Bill Clinton before the 2004 election. John Kerry’s task, he said, was to prevent Republicans from pulling the debate away from the economy on to the chosen ground of Christian evangelicals. Mr Kerry failed in the task. This year, however, the mood could not have been otherwise. The Democratic convention turned into an unabashed celebration of social liberalism. Only on gun control does the party still keep its counsel.

The polls explain why. In 2004, according to Pew, 60 per cent of Americans said they were opposed to gay marriage, with 31 per cent in favour. By this year the figures were 44 per cent against and 48 per cent for. The Democrats have a similar lead on abortion. Some 53 per cent of voters think abortion should be legal in most or all cases. The proportion against has fallen to 41 per cent.

It is not that Americans are clamouring for gays to walk up the aisle or for more women to have abortions. Rather the public mood is framed by greater tolerance. A more diverse society is becoming more respectful of, well, diversity. About half of Americans say Mr Obama is best able to reflect their views on social issues against 36 per cent for Mr Romney. This helps to explain the Democrats’ advantage among women voters, where Mr Obama holds a 56 per cent to 37 per cent lead.

Mr Romney, one suspects, understands this. Given a free hand he would tug the Republicans back towards the centre. You could see the instinct in this week’s debate. But the candidate is held prisoner to promises made to win the nomination. Tea Party conservatives have been empowered by a system of constituency boundaries and primary elections that hands the choice of candidates to grassroots activists.

There are still Republicans who believe that Mr Romney can swim against these demographic and social tides: that the polls overstate Mr Obama’s lead and that Republicans will outdo the Democrats in mobilising an, albeit smaller, base. But whatever the election outcome, the long-term challenge remains.

The other day I asked a Republican friend in Washington what the answer would be if, as the polls suggest, Mr Romney does go down to defeat. He gave a two-word answer: Jeb Bush.