I spent the weekend re-reading David Frum’s Dead Right. Published in 1995, Frum’s slim book is a gripping and devastating account of the failure of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to limit government. Frum’s thesis, which I do not believe he has ever recanted, is that the conservative movement became enamored with the trappings of power during the Reagan presidency, and stopped making the argument that America’s problems stem from our sprawling and dilapidated welfare state. Instead conservatives, like Reagan, told Americans they could indeed have it all: tax cuts and entitlements, big government at half the price. Frum’s solution was for conservatives to step back from the Republican Party, care somewhat less about elections, and spend more time convincing Americans that a radical reduction in the size and scope of government is necessary and just.

What really interested me, though, was Frum’s typology of post-Reagan conservatives. He divides them into three groups. There are optimists, led by Jack Kemp. There are moralists, led by William J. Bennett. And there are nationalists, led by Pat Buchanan.

Optimists say public policy is a matter of incentives. Human beings all want to do the right thing, but taxes and regulation get in the way. Cut taxes, reduce regulation, resurrect the gold standard, and people will flourish.