Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review, the magazine that helped launch the modern conservative movement. Writing in today’s Washington Post, Lowry stresses a weakness that conservatives must overcome:

[McCain’s] health plan was innovative…

But McCain didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on his own plan, and the Obama campaign successfully distorted it as a huge new tax increase. Conservatives were outraged by many things during the election season, but Obama’s dishonest and brutally effective attack on McCain’s plan wasn’t one of them. Even though it addresses a top public concern, health-care policy still doesn’t move the right.

At times, conservatives seemed bizarrely at odds with public sentiment…

Connecting better on the economy and middle-class pocketbook and quality-of-life issues will go a long way toward alleviating the troubles the GOP had in reaching moderates, suburbanites and even Latinos this year. It will require refreshing the conservative policy arsenal with innovative proposals that will look more like McCain’s health-care plan than the old tried and true…

Here are some suggestions regarding health-care choice, affordability, and Medicare reform.