Brooks envisioned a “huge opportunity” to “create a governing Republican majority” under Bush, echoing “precisely the aggressive foreign policy and patriotic national service themes that John McCain struck in the 2000 primary season,” including “rogue-state rollback,” “nation-building,” and “a summons to national service.” President Bush, Brooks gushed, had finally “broken the libertarian grip on the GOP.” On the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention, Brooks performed an end-zone dance celebrating “the death of small-government conservatism,” arguing that Republicans now “must embrace” a Teddy Roosevelt–style “progressive conservatism” if they want “to become the majority party for the next few decades.”