JUST LIKE BILL?

(7 of 7)
Blair is right, of course. Priorities count; details matter. But he has been maddeningly unspecific about many of those details and priorities. Maybe so, Blair would probably say, but the key is to get elected first. If Clinton had to become the acceptable face of Reaganism to reach the White House, so Blair is willing to become the acceptable face of Thatcherism to reach No. 10. Yet cloning has its limits, and Blair knows them well. He understands what happens when the dissonance between campaigning and governing becomes too great. Asked about the Republicans' 1994 midterm sweep, Blair suggested Clinton lacked the will to pursue the New Democrat policies on which he ran. "You don't run on one basis and govern on another," he said.

It may be that fiscal constraints everywhere mean that even the most creative politicians can be little more than good managers. Still, choices must be made, and to win, Blair has glossed over some of the divisions in his own party. Gordon Brown and Labour's deputy leader, John Prescott, for example, hold opposite views on the need for continued privatization. And as the gap in income inequality grows in Britain, the debate over mitigating the disparities will surely become heated.

Britain has a tradition of collective Cabinet leadership. Whether Blair, like Thatcher, can or will browbeat his colleagues is unknown. And even if he does, to what end? Blair's career thus far suggests a capacity for ruthlessness, and he often recalls the question asked by a G.O.P. speaker at the 1984 Republican Convention: "When was the last time you heard a Democrat say no?" That, says Blair, was "too close to the truth for comfort."

And that may be the best hope Britain has. For unlike Clinton, who famously seeks love and approval and alters his stance to get them, Blair's own ideological history is consistent. He has said more than once that "even if we could win as old Labour, we shouldn't."

More significant, Blair has proved self-assured enough to say no when necessary. New Labour wouldn't be new if he hadn't, and wouldn't be on the verge of victory otherwise.

Two years ago, well before the current campaign began, Blair visited a small town in northeastern England and spoke with a group of parents out of camera range. A mother asked whether a Labour government would fund a badly needed special-education teacher at her son's school. The easy answer--the Clinton answer--would have been yes. Blair looked the mom in the eye and expressed sympathy. Then he asked her to understand that resources are limited and that not even a Labour government, which will make education its top priority, can do everything. No, he said, he would not promise her a new teacher. If the man who probably will be Prime Minister next week follows his own example, a new era in British politics may begin. Tony Blair will have become the real thing.