When Reagan ran in 1980 as a challenger to Jimmy Carter, he regularly portrayed the country as on the brink of collapse and defeat on a monumental level. When he ran for re-election in 1984, suddenly it’s all roses and “morning in America”. Likewise when Clinton ran in 1992 challenging Bush, he portrayed America as being in terrible shape and in need of his help, while in 1996 running for re-election he painted an entirely positive picture of the country.

This year, the Democrats are running against an unpopular President in the Carter/Bush Sr. mode, and so naturally they are portraying things in a dark light (and perhaps quite realistically so). Likewise, McCain, running to succeed Bush, is downplaying such things, and trying to concentrate on positive notions of “patriotism” that are not dependent on suggesting that the country is actually doing all that well. Which is why his campaign is in far more trouble than people seem aware of. The realities on the ground can’t be ignored or covered over by appeals to positive virtues of honor and patriotism, when most people think the country is in big trouble.

But supporting a certain kind of policy does not necessarily make you an optimist. Thinking that derelict government systems can and should be reformed is not optimism. It is reformism. That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. Each example you cite is an example of conservatives deploying their assumptions about reality and human nature to produce better policies, and in each case the assumptions entailed belief that people are self-interested and fallen, but that they can and will respond to incentives and disincentives.

People should always be ashamed of optimism, because it is delusional, and no one should be proud of delusions. Being proud of concrete accomplishments that came from realistic assessments and moral principles is something else entirely.

Just think of a situation like the economy in 1980. Stagflation, heavy regulation, high tax rates, and interference with entrepreneurship stifling wealth-creation. Reagan was offering a clear solution to those problems, while liberals was suggesting they were just something we should get used to.

Or think of welfare reform — the left thought that people would have to be dependent on the state forever, and could never be put in a position where they could be expected to sustain themselves. Conservatives, again, took the view that there is no inherent social necessity for a permanent dependent underclass — and were proven right!

Or think of Reagan’s optimism that the Soviet Union need not be a permanent feature of the world to which we need accommodate ourselves…

In all these cases, conservatives were proven right in their optimism. Why do you think they should be ashamed of this?