1. I agree with this article's assessment that the @NiskanenCenter is one of the few right-of-center institutions that's doing substantive, reality-based thinking about politics these days. nymag.com/intelligencer/…
2. But the enormous, possibly insurmountable problem these folks face is that they are doing this work largely detached from "the conservative movement" that dominates the GOP. 
3. As long as the GOP base lives in the imaginary, Harold-and-the-Purple-Crayon world sketched out by Donald Trump and Fox News, GOP politicians who run on these center-right ideas don't stand a chance of making it through a primary.
4. IMHO, and based on my read of American political history, these center-right folks need not just ideas, but also a robust media strategy for building a political movement and political identity around those ideas.
5. Given the demise of the Weekly Standard (a logical outlet for such center-right ideas) and the general unseriousness of virtually all right-leaning media these days...this will be a very heavy lift.
6. In fact, it's almost impossible for me to imagine a conservative media outlet that spends more time talking about policy ideas in an engaging manner than it does "owning the libs" and screaming that "the sky is falling."
