The British Conservative party during 1997-2005 appeared to support the view that parties react to defeat by energizing their core vote base. Using a series of spatial and salience-based definitions of the core vote, combined with elite interviews with William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, the three Conservative leaders between 1997 and 2005, empirical evidence in support and also refutation of the core vote critique is evaluated here. The analyses suggest that Conservative issue strategies between 1997 and 2005 were chosen on grounds of spatial proximity and public perceptions of issue ownership, and that an appeal to Conservative voters was consistent with a broader appeal. The implications of this evidence are important for conceptualizing and applying party base explanations in Britain and beyond.Parties' strategic decisions are often thought to trade between pursuing the support of the majority and satisfying the interests of the base. American presidential candidates reassure their party ticket that the instincts and commitments that won them the nomination will be delivered in office, but appeal to the wider electorate on a more moderate platform. In the 2004 US presidential election, a strongly aligned electorate enabled George W. Bush to muster a 'Get Out the Vote' campaign, rather than persuade independents or win over wavering Democrats. The dominance of ideas about appealing to the base in the United States is such that the concepts have naturally been applied to other countries. As in the United States, divergent party positions are explained in West European party systems, such as Britain, France and Norway, by the ideological nature of a party's base; its partisans.1 These voters, it is argued, provide a strong incentive pulling parties away from the Downsian median voter equilibrium position.
2The idea that electoral constituencies diverge ideologically is uncontroversial within the cleavage view of politics whereby party-voter representation operates via meaningful
