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President Reagan stood for conservative principles in a way that brought people together.

For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values.

I think that, especially among conservatives, there's a clear understanding that there are three legs to the conservative stool. There are the free-market economics conservatives, the social conservatives, and the national-security conservatives.

President George Herbert Walker Bush ran as a strong conservative, ran to continue the third term of Ronald Reagan, continue the Ronald Reagan revolution. Then he raised taxes and in '92 ran as an establishment moderate - same candidate, two very different campaigns.

Reagan's approach will achieve one of the basic goals of the conservative: Things remain basically the same. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, or even a little poorer.

At the end of the day, every member of the conservative movement, from our political commentators and thinkers to our elected officials, share an important and common purpose in advancing the cause of liberty, reigning in a bloated federal government, and defending our traditional family values.

Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not - and more often than liberals - about most of the important issues of the day.

A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic; reformism is basically optimistic.