A group of neatly dressed young people gathered in the auditorium of the Heritage Foundation headquarters this summer to observe the cherished rituals of the D.C. internship. Most of the girls had long skirts and updos; the boys wore suits that didn’t quite fit—still trying Washington on for size. From a low stage, Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, bantered with them about the constants of D.C. life: their softball team, the ice-cream social scheduled for that afternoon. Then he launched into a professorial discourse about the nature of conservatism. The interns scribbled intently in Heritage notebooks, branded with the Liberty Bell.
For decades, a very specific kind of right-wing kid has dreamed about working at Heritage. “I would look at the building in awe,” a former member of the management team told me. The organization has an annual budget of about a hundred million dollars, and more than four hundred million in reserves. Its properties take up an entire city block on the Senate side of the Capitol. Heritage is the undisputed giant of the conservative-think-tank world—less a tank than an aircraft carrier. | 
