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Not in a generation has conservatism been in as much trouble as it is at the end of the George W. Bush years. Huge majorities of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. Voters prefer Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue--even taxes. Republican voting blocs are shrinking as a share of the population, while Democratic voting blocs are growing. Young voters in particular have turned radically against the GOP.

It is not just Iraq. Republican positions on economic and social issues are failing to connect with the American electorate, and intellectual exhaustion has overtaken the broader conservative movement. Conservatives seem stuck in the past, reliving the Reagan years. Too often, they offer solutions to problems that ceased to be salient a generation ago--such as crime (even though crime rates have fallen to the lowest level in half a century) and high personal income tax rates (even though 80 percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes).

In Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again (Doubleday, December 2007), David Frum examines the reasons why so many Americans have turned their backs on the Republican Party. He diagnoses the problems that Americans actually face today and offers fresh policy ideas for a post-Bush era. On January 7, 2008, AEI will host a discussion of Frum’s new book with renowned political analyst Michael Barone. AEI senior fellow Karlyn Bowman will moderate.

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