They are still in the process of figuring out what in fact happened to derail the movement:
“Now there’s the sense that the Republican Party is clearly on the defensive, and potentially heading for a disastrous election,” said Norman Ornstein, a longtime scholar at A.E.I. who specializes in legislative issues. “Even if John McCain wins, it’s not at all clear what that means in terms of ideas that conservatives have promoted. There is a division on what role we play in the world, what a smaller government means.”
For some on the right, the conservative decline is simply the result of veering away from the golden age of Ronald Reagan. Jonathan Rauch, a writer and a guest scholar at another Washington research organization, the Brookings Institution, said that many conservatives still believe that “Reagan got it right and the party has strayed too far.” He noted that the Heritage Foundation runs a feature on its Web site titled “What Would Reagan Do?”
For others, however, the nub of the problem is not deviance from the 1980s agenda but worshipful adherence to it. Mr. Frum is one of those who has undergone a conversion (or two). His book “Dead Right,” published in 1994, was a brisk catalog of Reagan’s failures (especially his failure to reduce the size of government). Then, after writing speeches for President Bush, Mr. Frum wrote “The Right Man,” in which he characterized President Bush’s leadership as “nothing short of superb.” But in his newest book, “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again,” Mr. Frum confesses that his former boss has “led his party to the brink of disaster.” This'll be interesting to watch. Conservatism has been an ongoing force in American politics since it's inception--they are the people who brought you the Constitution in its original form--so they are not going away, but they will be woodshedding for a while.
