“There are two major political parties in America, but there are at least three major political tendencies. The first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using government to maximize equality. The second is free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting government to maximize freedom,” writes David Brooks for the New York Times.

“But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility. This tendency began with Alexander Hamilton, who created a vibrant national economy so more people could rise and succeed. It matured with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Republicans, who created the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act to give people the tools to pursue their ambitions. It continued with Theodore Roosevelt, who busted the trusts to give more Americans a square deal,” the man recently described by conservative bloggers as an ‘elite conservative’ continues.

“Members of this tradition have one foot in the conservatism of Edmund Burke. They understand how little we know or can know and how much we should rely on tradition, prudence and habit. They have an awareness of sin, of the importance of traditional virtues and stable institutions. They understand that we are not free-floating individuals but are embedded in thick social organisms.”

But there is more to the political ideology of these individuals than Burkean views. ”

But members of this tradition also have a foot in the landscape of America, and share its optimism and its Lincolnian faith in personal transformation. Hamilton didn’t seek wealth for its own sake, but as a way to enhance the country’s greatness and serve the unique cause America represents in the world. Members of this tradition are Americanized Burkeans, or to put it another way, progressive conservatives.”

This latter term, progressive conservatives is one I cannot possibly endorse. It is a contradiction in terms, obviously, and should be discarded as such.

But the point about these conservatives, moderate conservatives as I like to call them or Americalized conservatives, as Brooks calls them, stands. There is a long tradition of moderate conservatism in the United States, a longer tradition I dare say than what is currently understood as ‘liberalism.’

Brooks then goes on to argue that many of such conservatives, who he also describes as “Hamilton-to-Bull Moose” conservatives, hoped that this long tradition would be “reborn” John McCain’s campaign. However, says Brooks, “McCain never took sides in this debate and never articulated a governing philosophy, Hamiltonian or any other. In Sunday’s issue of The Times Magazine, Robert Draper describes the shifts in tactics that consumed the McCain campaign. The tactics varied promiscuously, but they were all about how to present McCain, not about how to describe the state of country or the needs of the voter. It was all biography, which was necessary, but it did not clearly point to a new direction for the party or the country.”

To a very large degree, I think that Brooks is correct: firstly about the ‘Bull Moose’ tradition in the United States and, secondly, about how many such conservatives hoped that McCain would present himself as one of them during this year’s campaign. Yet, he failed to do so, and that, I think, is a major reason for his horrible performance in the polls.

Not only was McCain unable to present himself as a Bull Moose conservative, he was unable to present himself as any specific kind of conservative or moderate. He lacks a vision for governing, an underlying theory for governance. He may possess it, his record indicates he does, as does his criticism of other presidents including George W. Bush, but he has failed to articulate it during this year’s campaign.

And, who knows, perhaps he does lack such a vision.

In any case, it is a shame that McCain failed to do what Brooks describes. It will cost him the election, and his party will go down with him. The center is increasingly moving to Barack Obama, not because he is such a strong centrist – his record indicates he is anything but – but because his opponent has failed to articulate a clear vision, first and foremost, and a moderate conservative vision second.

As Brooks writes, that is in the end what McCain’s main mistake may very well have been. The majority of the American electorate are moderate conservatives. The United States is a center right country, those who are able to win over those moderate conservative voters win.

Since Obama at least has a governing vision, and since he has tried to present himself as reasonably moderate during the last few months of the campaign and arguably already during the Democratic primaries, he and the Democratic Party as a whole will own those votes, and conquer the White House and Congress in November.

If the Republican Party wants to make a comeback they will have to reclain ‘the center.’ The only way to do so is, I believe, to adopt a new, yet old, interpretation of conservatism, adapted to the times.

And that is, in the end, very Burkean.