the invitation of aei to this event. it means a great deal to me to be here in washington for a change on a cold and kind of rainy day. usually it s hot and humid when i m here. this is a nice change. thanks for coming out to the event. i like to thank steve hayward who i taught with in a history of government class in ohio, steve, who works, of course, on environmental issues and energy issues for, ei dabbles in the side on ronald reagan publishes big books about him and figures he gets to talk about on every occasion. we talked about lbj and reagan and you can guess who got who. i m angling for william harry and reagan. my talk tonight is adapted from my book. it is a little different than the book itself. it s the conservative century revisited. he was not the first person to predict the demise after a republican defeat. it s a standard stroke of politicians to state how a catastrophe at the polls states a requiem on the right. this is taken so seriously that an essay publ