Ryan Sager's book grew out of the 2005 CPAC conference in Washington. The mood was upbeat: President Bush had beaten back the challenge from the left-wing John Kerry, and the Republicans had increased their majorities in both House and Senate. And yet in Bush's first term spending had increased faster than under Clinton, and the Federal Government was expanding, not shrinking. The paradoxes prompted Sager to look back to the roots of the modern conservative movement in the 1950s—to Bill Buckley and National Review, and especially to the “fusionism” of NR's Frank Meyer. Sager outlines the shape of a fusionism for the 21st century, with libertarians and social conservatives joining forces to beat back Rove's big-government Republicanism.