“For me to be successful, I’m going to have to show my heart.”

That was Jeb Bush’s self-assessment as he prepared to announce his candidacy for president. This judgment could well have come from speaking with Arthur C. Brooks, or perhaps reading an advance copy of “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America.”

Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that, according to its website, is “committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise.” Though officially nonpartisan, A.E.I.’s mission statement and community of scholars put it squarely on the right. A.E.I. is a superb generator of conservative policy research, and it is the farm team and retirement outpost for political appointees to Republican administrations. (Full disclosure: I was a visiting scholar at A.E.I. some years ago, just after I had spent two years working as an economic adviser to President George W. Bush and well before Brooks arrived there.)

In this new book, Brooks calls attention to an image problem facing today’s conservatives and offers his solution. The intended audience seems to be the couple of dozen politicians running, or considering a run, for the Republican nomination for president. Or more realistically, because those guys (and one gal) are too busy eating corn dogs in Iowa to do much reading these days, the real audience may be their speechwriters.

The image problem is that conservatives too often resemble Ebenezer Scrooge. By opposing increases in the minimum wage, advocating cuts in corporate taxes, railing against excessive regulation of business and worrying about the cost of entitlement programs, they appear to care only about the rich and well-­connected. They seem indifferent to the needs of those whom Hillary Clinton likes to call “everyday Americans.”