David Frum

David Frum is an attorney, journalist and Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and is an advocate of American conservatism. He was a special assistant and speechwriter to George W. Bush. He speaks and writes for conservative principles, and is a columnist for the National Post (Canada), and a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard. He was a contributing editor for National Review, and runs the NewMajority.com website, "dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement."

"He studies recent political, generational, and demographic trends and warns that the conservatism of the 1980s will have to revise and reinvent itself to compete in twenty-first century America. In 2007, the British newspaper Daily Telegraph named him one of America's fifty most influential conservatives." He also edits the NewMajority.com website. He is currently at work on a book about the decline of the Republican Party in California since 1990.

Political background

He was a Reagan campaign volunteer in 1980, and attended every Republican convention since 1988, and worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

In his year at the White House, he is credited with the phrase "axis of evil".

In 2008, he worked in the Rudy Giuliani campaign and voted John McCain in November.

Republican and conservative revival

He has written of his concern with the effects of self-identified conservative media commentators, especially Rush Limbaugh, in an article beginning with an attack on Frum by radio host Mark Levin and mentioning Sean Hannity, and the correspondence he receives, telling him to get out of the U.S. Republican Party if he disagrees with them.

There's the perfect culmination of the outlook Rush Limbaugh has taught his fans and followers: we want to transform the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into a party of unanimous dittoheads—and we don't care how much the party has to shrink to do it. That's not the language of politics. It's the language of a cult.

I doubt Limbaugh and I even disagree very much. But the issues on which we do disagree are maybe the most important to the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party: Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? To narrow our coalition or enlarge it? To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit—or to serve?

Counterterrorism

Frum coauthored the 2003 book, An End to Evil, with Richard Perle, which advocates a strong policy against terror. The book treated Saddam Hussein as the greatest single threat.

Background

Born in Canada, he holds M.A. and B.A. degrees from Yale University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. At Harvard Law, he was president of the Federalist Society chapter.