to my criticisms here. Douthat sees more unwarranted optimism among conservatives than I do, and therefore thinks it more important to supply a corrective than I do. There will always be conservative Pollyannas, of course. But my own sense is that there is rather less unwarranted optimism than there was in 1995 (when Republicans took the Congress) or in late 1999 (when Bush emerged on the national scene with a substantial lead over Gore and various conservatives worthies swooning over him). Conservatives did not return to those peaks, perhaps interestingly, even after the 2002 and 2004 elections.