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After six years of bending to the gales of tea party vituperation against President Barack Obama, the 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls seem to be rising up like visitors to Oz -- with a heart, courage and a brain.

"Idea conservative" is a common nickname given to those who seek to respond to liberal ideas, policies and programs with something more than a simple "No."

We've seen this "new ideas" dance before. Ronald Reagan revived post-Watergate Republicans partly by inspiring conservative think tanks and market-based alternatives to the government-centered remedies of liberal New Deal Democrats. Bill Clinton revived Democratic fortunes by embracing the center-left ideas of the Democratic Leadership Council. George W. Bush pushed "compassionate conservatism" in 2000.

Now, after losing the popular vote in five of the last six presidential races, Republicans appear to be ready to put their thinking caps -- or think tank caps -- on again.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been pushing an activist "American dream" agenda to boost economic mobility through wage subsidies, affordable child care and other "equal opportunity" measures.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is backpedaling away from his earlier libertarian-inspired criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act after a year of visits to black, Hispanic and low-income communities across the country. In Cincinnati last week, he told the National Urban League convention how he would expand voting rights, grow education opportunities and "stand and fight for justice" in a judicial system that's stacked against minorities.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has alluded to similar themes on the stump, sounding as though he already has put his Bridgegate scandal behind him. "I'm pro-life, and if you're pro-life you have to be pro-life when they get out of the womb also," he told the Aspen Institute in Colorado.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who also continues to sound like he wants to be a candidate, wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed of "a need for compassion" in responding to the recent surge of migrant children at our southwestern border.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin unveiled his long-awaited 73-page agenda for fighting poverty, conservative style, at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Its main features include an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, an income-supplement for low-wage workers that already has enjoyed bipartisan support since it began in President Gerald Ford's administration.

A more controversial feature of Ryan's plan are "Opportunity Grants" that sound a lot like block grants in the way they lump money for food stamps, housing assistance and other anti-poverty programs into one big allocation to the states to dispense as they please.

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