Hot on Quora: What is the simplest way to differentiate between a conservative and a liberal?

"Travis" by John C. Drew,
Ph.D. Oil on canvas, 11" x 14".

The easiest tool I use for differentiation of conservatives from liberals is to ask whether they think people are weak or strong. Conservatives see people as strong individuals who can figure things out, make their own way, and create a good life for themselves. Liberals tend to see people as weak and incapable of doing much without the help of government, particularly the federal government. Most of the popular differences between conservatives and liberals easily breakdown between a conflict between seeing people as generally capable or incapable.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Waiting for Garrow: New Obama Biography Due This Week

Those of us who want to reduce President Obama’s future influence in American politics are looking forward to the release of David J. Garrow’s new 1,400 page opus, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. Although Professor Garrow is a Bernie Sanders donor, he has a reputation as an honest, straightforward historian. This reputation is the result of his balanced and even somewhat damaging Pulitzer Prize winning book on Martin Luther King, Bearing the Cross (1986).

John Drew with David Garrow in Laguna Niguel, CA.

While some journalists have already received preliminary copies of Rising Star, most of us will have to wait a little longer since the book will be released on May 9, 2017. As for me, however, I have been waiting to read Garrow’s book since December 2011.

I was one of the 1,000 people who Garrow interviewed, a number he repeatedly refers to when he wants to present his book as the new, gold standard for Obama biographies. Garrow’s book is competing for this honor against David Remnick’s The Bridge (2010) and David Maraniss’s Barack Obama: The Story (2012). Neither Remnick or Maraniss interviewed me even though they interviewed almost all of the students I knew at Occidental College between 1979-1981.

I have always found this odd since my face-to-face observations of young Obama’s radical ideology were reported -- prior to the publication of either book -- by Ronald Kessler in a NEWSMAX article that appeared in early February 2010. See, http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/obama-college-marxism-occidental/2010/02/08/id/349329/

Later, my complete report of Obama’s commitment to a leadership role in a coming, inevitable Communist revolution appeared in an article I wrote called “Meeting Young Obama” that was published in American Thinker in February 2011. See, http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/02/meeting_young_obama.html

Maraniss’s failure to interview me seems particularly misguided since my first impression of young Obama has been accessed and cited by so many other authors. So far, it has appeared in Glenn Beck’s “Liars” (2016), Jack Cashill’s “Deconstructing Obama” (2011), Stanley Kurtz’s “Radical-In-Chief” (2010), Paul Kengor’s “Dupes” (2010) and “The Communist” (2012), and Michael Savages’ “Trickle Up Poverty” (2010).

Accordingly, I was suspicious when I first heard from Garrow by e-mail because my story had been so neglected by previous mainstream historians. In an abundance of caution, I checked out his YouTube videos and then asked him to give me a call so I could be sure I was talking to the real Pulitzer Prize historian and not some deranged Occupy Wall Street protester. Over the phone, we agreed to meet at my home in Laguna Niguel.

As a political scientist, I have spoken with presidential historians before, including the late James MacGregor Burns who was a colleague at Williams College. However, I had never been interviewed by one. 

I was surprisingly nervous.  As Garrow sat in my living room, I almost dumped a full glass of ice tea on him.  It was also surprisingly unpleasant to remember my youthful days as a recent Occidental College graduate who was dating a girl, Caroline Boss, who was still a senior at Occidental and who was so close to young Obama that Maraniss claims she was one of the most significant composite characters included in Obama’s Dreams from My Father (1995).  I prepared for the interview by sorting through old photographs and rereading about 30 cards and letters from that era of my life. 

As it turned out, Garrow was something of a gossip. He entertained me with news regarding the fate of my old friends and acquaintances:  who got married to who, who succeeded in life and who failed. I also found out Garrow plays an awkward role in informing people of the deaths of those who used to be in their social circles.  In my case, Garrow revealed one of the Occidental College radical leaders I knew best, Gary Chapman, 58, had died of a heart attack the previous December.

During the recorded interview, my aim was to stress my credibility and to get as much of my story as I could into the historical record. I shared with him evidence of my relationship with Boss including some photos and a romantic card she sent me.

Over time, it became clear that while Garrow was familiar with my American Thinker piece on young Obama, he was much more interested in tracking down the community which surrounded Obama at Occidental and by all accounts continued to support and stay in touch with him right up to his election as president.

Sensing his true interests, I surprised him by bringing out an old, tattered, green address book which included Boss’s phone numbers and addresses in both the U.S. and Europe. He seemed positively giddy about it.  He wrote down nothing and instead he read out loud from my address book into his recorder.

I did speak to him off-the-record too, but only about sexual matters, the sort of unseemly things which would be embarrassing to air but still would help him understand the intimate social connections of Obama’s Occidental College friends. He indicated to me that his next stop would be Washington state where he would interview Caroline and her husband, Tom, who had also been a student at Occidental College.

After we were done, I remember Garrow was gracious enough to pose with me for a photo. It turns out his wife, Darleen, had been waiting for us in a car while the interview took place. As she took the picture, I praised her husband for his status as a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer. She seemed a little jaded by my compliment and less effusive than me in praising his worthwhile accomplishments.

At this point, I am not at all confident I had much impact on Garrow’s book.

I listened to a radio interview he gave to Jamie Weinstein and he flatly dismissed any suggestion that young Obama was gay, Marxist, Muslim or a beneficiary of the writing and editing skills of Bill Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist. Using the broadest possible definitions, in contrast, I see the young Obama as all four. I am waiting to see if the mainstream media will use Garrow’s book to short-circuit future attempts to create an honest account of Obama life, an account which should rightfully end his political influence.

Note: This article was originally published in American Thinker on May 8, 2017.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Which President is Most Like Trump? I Vote Jefferson

As someone who once taught courses at Williams College on the presidency, I suppose I should The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House.

chime in. One of the simplest models on predicting presidential performance comes from James David Barber's book,

He evaluates presidents along two variables: Are they active or passive, and are they - for lack of better words - happy or sad. In this model, Trump falls into what Barber sees as the most useful quadrant, active-positive. This places Trump among previous active-positive presidents like Thomas Jefferson and F. D. Roosevelt. In many ways, it might be useful to explore the parallels between Trump and Jefferson to see what might happen - good or bad - under an "America First" president.

Here's a useful link regarding Barber's model, http://academic.regis.edu/jriley/414%20presidential_character.htm

As I initially explored the idea of a Jefferson and Trump comparison, I was intrigued to see that I was not among the first to take this connection seriously. For example, Rhys Jones wrote an interesting article on this topic in History Today, just prior to the election, called "Donald Trump and the Election of 1800." He makes is clear that Trump has tapped into a theme of anti-globalization that would have been attractive to many of our Founding Fathers, including Jefferson. Comparing the two, he writes:

Both consider the US to be a world unto itself. In 1803, Jefferson purchased the vast Louisiana territories from Napoleon at the fire sale price of two cents per acre. The resulting westward expansion enabled him to re-orientate America away from its eastern seaboard, away from Atlantic trade, and towards the promise of a simpler future, in which traditionalism and localism would take precedent over global commerce. Jefferson often referred to America as an ‘Empire of Liberty’, a continent that would mind its own business, safely cocooned from the complicated politics and warfare of Napoleonic Europe. These same instincts for isolationism fixate Trump and his base. In his disregard for NATO and adherence to economic protectionism, Trump imagines that America can – literally – wall itself off from the outside world.

 Likewise, Jones sees Jefferson's powerful anti-elitism as another key similarity with the out-spoken and often outrageous Trump:

And while Jefferson was not a rabble-rouser like Trump, he certainly indulged the politics of populism. During a series of agrarian revolts in Massachusetts in 1787, which threatened to violently overturn local government, Jefferson applauded the rioters. ‘A little rebellion now and then is a good thing’, he wrote. The revolt was stimulated by economic hardship among the rural population who demanded financial relief and the printing of paper money – sentiments that earned Jefferson’s sympathy.

All in all, Jefferson advocated states' rights over the federal government. Like Trump, he focused on cutting the size of the federal government and reduced its spending (even on the military). He paid $15 million for the Louisiana Purchase, and neatly doubling the nation's size while he was in office. Like Jefferson, Trump as the opportunity to grow our nation's wealth and status: "Big League." Thanks to Barber's insight, there is a good chance that Trump has what it takes to win this fight too.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Ten to One Against the Odds: Cashing in on Trump's Magnificient Victory

I really do not have the money to bet. I do not have any interest in it either. Whatever makes compulsive gamblers want to try their luck against a casino seems to have no hold at all on my otherwise fragile neural-system. Nevertheless, I was pressured into a bet on the presidential election.

After Trump locked up the nomination in July, one of my friends at the gym bet me $100.00 that Trump would lose the election. I do not bet, as a rule, so I turned him down: "I don't have that kind of money."

"I'll bet $100.00 to your $10.00 that he will lose," he replied. I was tired from 20 minutes on the elliptical. I shook his hand and took the bet. I could handle paying him $10.00 if Trump bombed out in November.

At any rate, I showed up at the gym this afternoon and my friend discretely handed me the $100.00 bill posted above. I tried to give him his money back. He refused. "Were you surprised?" I asked. "Oh, yes," he exclaimed.

I suppose I learned a little bit about my own political calculus. This summer, I would have accepted a ten to one odds against bet on Trump. I would have and I did. Based on everything I know about polling and presidential elections, I knew in my heart that Trump's chance of winning was well above 10%.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew's CA Voter Guide: A Tea Party Activist Reviews CA Ballot Propositions



Dr. Drew Hangs Out At
Southern California Beach

I thought it would be helpful to list my take on the California state-wide ballot measures. These were very confusing and took time to sort through. In general, I am proceeding along the lines that less is more and that it is probably a good idea to have fewer new laws than more new laws. (I am borrowing a lot of this information from the Orange County Register, even though I am saying "No" more frequently than they suggest...)

Proposition 30 - NO

Tax Hike: It is a silly idea to raise taxes right now. It is a better idea to cut the pay of government employees and trim back our bloated California government.

Proposition 31 - NO

2-Year Budget: Just creates a new layer of local government.

Proposition 32 - YES

Union Funds: This is the most important measure on the ballot and the only one I feel really strongly about voting yes on. It would prohibit union contributions to state and local candidates. It would also impose a ban on automatic paycheck deductions for political purposes by unions. Public employee unions are killing us and this is one of the few ways for us to fight back.

Proposition 33 - NO

Insurance: I just do not understand how this helps consumers and I think it is probably better for the legislature to figure this one out.

Proposition 34 - NO

Death Penalty: If you vote yes on this one, then California would no longer have a death penalty. I think we are all better off when these bad guys are no longer alive. At the very least, it keeps liberals from the future from freeing these people to hurt still more innocent victims.

Proposition 35 - NO

Sex Trafficking: Looks like it just adds more complexity to the existing law. As I said, I am in the mood of seeing government do less and less.

Proposition 36 - NO

Three Strikes Law: This would weaken the state's 18 year-old three strikes law. Frankly, I do not think there should be any crime at all. I do not understand how it helps us to allow these folks to roam free, terrorizing their law abiding neighbors. If you cannot avoid harming other people - in big or minor ways - then I do not want you on the streets.

Proposition 37 - NO

Food Labeling: This looks like an issue that would be better handled by the marketplace. If you do not want to eat genetically modified food, then I think there are providers out there to meet your needs.

Proposition 38 - NO

Tax Hike: Again, just another trick to raise revenue to pay the inflated, unfair salaries of unionized government employees.

Proposition 39 - NO

Tax Hike: This would eliminate the option for companies with headquarters out of state to choose the least-burden some formula for paying their California taxes. Just looks like more anti-business hate from the state.

Proposition 40 - YES

Redistricting: I just do not see any major advantages coming out of changing the existing rules or districts. This looks like more unnecessary instability. A "No" vote would reject the new state senate districts drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Committee.

My simple advice is to only vote YES on 32 and pretty much ignore everything else.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist. He applies his skills as a grant writing consultant in the Southern Calfornia area. His website is at the following link: http://drdrewguaranteedgrants.com/about-us/

New Photos From Occidental Years Show Real Obama

The New Yorker blog features new photos that verify my take on what our 44th president acted and looked like as a sophomore at Occidental College. Readers will note the real Obama, the young revolutionary extremist with a soft spot for Islam, that I got to know as a participant in Occidental’s radical student politics.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/barack-obama-at-occidental-college-photographs.html#

Curiously, the photos show Obama wearing a band on his left ring finger that WND alleges to read “there is no God but Allah.” 

http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obamas-ring-there-is-no-god-but-allah/

The photo I find to be most historically significant is the one that shows details from of the anti-apartheid rally of February 18, 1981, the rally that debuted Obama’s famous first skit in Obama’s Dreams from My Father. In contrast to Obama’s story, the banner above the event proclaims the somewhat more complex cause of “Affirmative Action & Divestiture NOW.” The photo features many of the real life figures who would become composite characters in Obama’s autobiography. These include my white ex-girlfriend, Caroline Boss, the radical student leader who improbably lent her grandmother’s name - and much of her scintillating personality - to the big-boned, black “Regina” character.

For the record, I view these photos from the perspective of an accident victim looking at a long ago car wreck. Caroline and I had parted ways just weeks before this rally. As I recall, the split was painful enough to cause us to temporarily adopt the roles of imaginary divorce lawyers, lawyers who combed through our conflicting feelings and amicably laid out the details of what became our eventual, imperfect separation.

For many years, young Obama was simply a footnote in my own intellectual autobiography. He was an early witness to the process in which I abandoned my expectation of a Communist revolution, dropped my old Occidental College friends, and eventually became a Republican business owner. In contrast, Obama held tight to his Occidental College friends and their causes.

“Decades later,” Margot Mifflin writes in response to these photos, “Obama would spur a new generation of students into political action, forging a connection between sixties radicals and media-savvy millennials.” Mifflin, of course, is only telling part of the story. She leaves out the part where at least one of Obama’s friends was not so pleased by the impact of affirmative action and never quite forgot what it was like to sacrifice everything he had for scholarly achievement only to learn, at the end of the process: “Sorry, you’re white.”

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Gaydar Gap: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Attacks Dr. Drew's First Impression of Young Obama

As I said, whenever I am asked what I first thought about Barack Obama I tell the truth: I thought he was gay. Apparently, my take on young Obama's metrosexual appearance was worthy of being attacked last week on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC.



Maddow is apparently seeking to make me look like some kind of a nut simply because I have been honest about my first impression of young Obama. She and I both have Ph.D.'s in political science. I would think that she would give me some credit for being an honest and truthful person. I would also like to point out that David Maraniss, in his new book Barack Obama: The Story, verified that both young Obama and young Chandoo were in the San Francisco area at exactly then I indicated they were up there visiting with me and my ex-girlfriend.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Appears on Romney Radio - September 14, 2012

I was honored to appear on Romney Radio last week. I was interviewed by Clint Cox and his friends. I was billed as "...a former Marxist who knew the young radical Barack Obama and many of his closest friends at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA in the early 1980s."

"Dr. Drew's college era girlfriend," they pointed out, "was so close to young Obama that she became part of the composite character Regina in Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father. Dr. Drew is among a handful of people in the world who not only knew the young Obama but are willing to go on the record about what they knew of his ideology." For the radio interivew, click below:

I would also like to point out that David Maraniss, in his new book Barack Obama: The Story, verified that both young Obama and young Chandoo were in the San Francisco area at exactly then I indicated they were up there visiting with me and my ex-girlfriend.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew's Contribution to Today's Empty Chair Campaign

I thought I should add my two cents regarding the Obama empty chair campaign today. I'm not quite sure what the empty chair is supposed to signify except that Obama has not done a lot to bring back jobs. Sadly, new data shows that family income has decreased during the Obama years. As the Wall Street Journal points out: "For household income, in other words, the Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession."

As for me, I'm still mystified about why the Romney campaign fails to dig into the now substantial literature regarding young Obama's ties to Marxist socialist extremists like Frank Marshall Davis - a known Communist on the FBI's watch list. At any rate, this is how I would have set up Mr. Eastwood's famous performance piece at the RNC.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Asks: When Exactly Did Barack Obama Renounce Communism?

As an ex-Marxist I am somewhat hypersensitive to the conversion stories of other ex-Marxists. In my case, I remember where I was the exact moment I realized I no longer believed in the ideals of Communism: I was walking through the basement of McGraw Hall at Cornell University in September 1983. I had just finished an argument with my radical thesis advisor, an argument which left me thinking he was ideologically blinded and alarmingly out-of-touch with reality.

For previous generations, such moments of clarity often occurred in the wake of a violent, oppressive event. As Whittaker Chambers describes it in Witness, that moment arrived with an unheeded cry in the Moscow night. As David Horowitz describes it in Radical Son, that moment arrived with the recognition that the Black Panthers had murdered an accountant he had placed with them. For Barack Obama, however, that moment never arrives.

My visceral reaction to Obama’s lack of a conversion story was the topic of an interview I did with a film crew I met last week. I am grateful they took their time to get my face-to-face report on young Obama’s faith in a coming Communist revolution.

As I understand it, the producers will eventually add this footage into a larger documentary called “Simply America” which is “…a journey across our country to give a voice to the American conservative.”

I am still embarrassed for having once wanted the USSR to win the Cold War - even though I last thought this way over 30 years ago. I have a conversion story which explains how I dropped my faith in Communist ideals and how that decision changed my friendships, my mentors and my career goals.

In contrast, President Obama has never expressed remorse for the Marxist revolutionary views he defended during his sophomore year at Occidental College. He has never shared the conversion story that highlights the exact moment when he realized he disagreed with his sophomore year Marxist roommate, Hasan Chandoo.

“If Barack Obama has a story about how he stopped being a Marxist socialist,” I told the film crew, “I’d like to hear it.”

Later, I pointed out that “We never hear where he (Obama) turns to Caroline Boss or Hasan Chandoo and says: ‘Look. You’re wrong. It’s crazy. Communism would actually make us worse off - not better off.’”

“We never hear the story where he confronts Bill Ayers or Alice Palmer or Rev. Wright and tells them ‘Look. You guys are wrong.’”

I am still ashamed of the dangerous, alien and un-American views I once shared with Barack Obama. Nevertheless, I am happy to share my conversion story. Eventually, I expect swing voters will want to hear Obama’s conversion story too – if it exists. For now, however, the details of Obama’s conversion story seem as scarce as Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Appears in "Barry's Bud" a Brand New Simply America Documentary Film

I have been waiting to get my story out in a professional quality video. Here is the first successful effort from the folks at Simply America. They spent about three hours working with me and produce about five minutes of the best stuff on their new mini documentary. As I review this tape, I am reminded that Barack Obasma has never shared his conversion story, the story that explains how he stopped being a Marxist socialist.



My conversion story is already out there. As such, I am happy to do whatever it takes to keep this series of documentary films rolling along. You can help too by donating $20 at the Simply America website.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Rush Limbaugh Rejoices: We Finally Found a Friend of Obama's Who Knew Him from College

I was startled today by a large number of phone calls and e-mails alerting me to the fact that my story about the real, white Regina was mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh radio program this morning.

Apparently, Rush had read through, or scanned, my recent article on how my white college era girlfriend, Caroline Boss, became the black Regina in Obama's Dreams from My Father. Here's the actual transcript right off of Rush's website.

RUSH: There's also a guy out now, John Drew, I forget where this is. I've got somewhere in the stack. Apparently this guy dated one of the composite women in Obama's book. The woman named Regina, this guy dated her for two years. And according to this guy, Regina was not black. She wasn't from the south side of Chicago. She was white. They were all left-wing radicals. They spent their summers in San Francisco. Obama, at Occidental College, was a Marxist. This is this guy's writing. We finally found a friend of Obama's from back then. Now, this is not gonna get a wide berth, but it's out there. I don't care about the labels, communist this, we don't even need 'em. Obama is now telling us who he is. And I must admit, there's a bit of rejoicing going on with me, El Rushbo. This, my friends, is something that I've been confident in knowing since Obama was a Senator. It's not hard. Like I said, you don't even need a high school diploma. All you have to do is understand who modern liberals are and what they are, what they want to do. After that it's easy. The hardest part is admitting that there are people like that amongst us in positions of power with so many friends. But it ought not be. The more people that could come to grips with that, the farther along we would be.

Of course, what Rush may not have realized is that I have been trying to get my story to his attention for about four years now - ever since I first realized that I had valuable insight into the real Barack Obama. Ironically, I discovered that my take on young Obama's ideological extremism was also a topic of discussion on the Sean Hannity radio program featuring Paul Kengor and his new book, The Communist - Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor. The day before, Kengor cited my take on young Obama extremism on The Blaze TV - see my story featured at 12:20.

 All in all, I'm particularly grateful to everyone who worked behind the scenes to assist me with writing the article that eventually came to Rush's attention this morning. For a short YouTube video including my take on young Obama's ideological extremism, please click here.

  John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist. He applies his skills as a grant writing consultant in the Southern Calfornia area. His website is at the following link: http://drdrewguaranteedgrants.com/about-us/

Dr. Drew Honored to Get Shout Out from Capo Valley Republican Women Federated

Dr. Drew Asks for Your Help By Answering His Survey Questions



Dr. Drew has announced that he is
running for a position on the
Orange County Republican
Central Committee.

As you may know, I'm running as a candidate for the local Republican Central Committee.  I'm doing this, largely, to set a good example for all the Tea Party folks out there who I have encouraged to run for public office.  Running for your local central committee is a great way to learn what's happening at the local level and to refine your skills in speaking, campaigning and politics. 

In my view, politics is a sport like baseball.  You get better at it with practice and ever increasing name identification.  One of the secrets of success in politics is to get real about the electorate by taking a look at polling data.  Accordingly, I'd like to ask you to answer this brief survey I put together for all my fellow Tea Party friends in Orange County, CA who are looking to gain greater influence over the local Republican party. 

Click here to take survey

I put this survey together using a free account I set up at Survey Monkey.  You can easily do the same.  This sort of research is actually very helpful in making decisions during a campaign because it gives you greater information about what people really think.  Luckily, people are likely to be very honest in anonymous written surveys like the ones offered by Survey Monkey.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Not So Bright for a Liberal Prodigy: Dr. Drew Dismantles Nate Silver's Attack on Political Science Election Forecast Models

As a student of charismatic leadership, I'm usually skeptical about the so-called "prodigies" so admired by the leftwing media outlets like the New York Times.  Consequently, I like to think that I was the political scientist who first got under Nate Silver's skin in terms of pulling apart his arrogant predictions of electoral results based on last minute polling data.  I suggested that it really wasn't very interesting to predict elections results from polling data since all we were doing was assuming that the voters would not do much to change their minds between now and the upcoming election. Silver, by the way, rose to fame as a predictor of baseball outcomes.

Nevertheless, young guys like Nate Silver and Ezra Klein have been elevated by the liberal media because of their style of writing has a sort of pseudo-science quality about it which - I suppose - is the only plausible justification for having a young white guy writing for a liberal, extremist entity.  When you look into their credentials, for example, there is not to much to be impressed by their records.  Klien only earned a B.A. in political science at University of California - Irvine.  In 2000, Silver graduated with Honors with an A.B. degree in economics from the University of Chicago. Only in the crazy world of leftwing journalism is either one considered an expert.

As far as I'm concerned both of them are still undergraduates when it comes to understanding politics, economics or sociology.  As such, I enjoy poking holes in their pretentious, arrogant takes on contemporary politics.  As a political scientist and an eyewitness to young Obama's ideological extremism, I'm particularly irritated that folks like Silver and Klein do not seem to appreciate what is obvious to most of us: Obama's extraordinary ties to radical Marxist socialist thought. 

As part of my larger effort to bring these "prodigies" to Earth, I left a comment for Silver months ago that pointed out that political scientists could predict presidential elections far in advance simply by looking at variables like the economy or the success or failure of a war.  In reaction to my critique, Silver has launched a full scale attack against the very idea of political science and the usefulness of making predictions far in advance.  In one of his most recent articles, for example, the title of his article makes the absurd claim that political scient models based on ‘fundamentals’ have "failed" at predicting presidential elections.  This headline, of course, is absurd when you consider, as John Sides writes:

Of the 58 separate predictions that Nate tabulates, 85 percent of them correctly identified the winner — even though most forecasts were made two months or more before the election and even though few of these forecasts actually incorporated trial heat polls from the campaign.

Sides, by the way, is a political scientist who uses these forecasting models himself and sees them as ways of testing overall theory. The larger issue, for me, is that Silver's comments reflect the odd anti-intellectual bias of the left-wing media.  As far as I can tell, the most interesting, powerful and predictive work in political science is coming from conservatives like the late James Q. Wilson or Charles Murray.  Personally, I'm sort of proud that my modest contribution to political science - my child labor, child welfare theory - does such a great job of predicting when and where child welfare programs arose in the U.S. and around the world.

All in all, I'm skeptical of guys like Silver who exaggerate their skill sets to the extent that they imagine that their comments "sit at the intersection of political science and the mainstream media." As an award-winning political scientist, I think common sense alone suggests that a fellow writing for the NYT would be anxious to look for anything to back up his fellow liberals' hope that the horrible "Obama economy" will not cause Obama's defeat in 2012. As a real, published political scientist I have the following comments:

1. A Real Political Scientist Doesn't Play Games with the Dependent Variable: It is silly for him to change the dependent variable to one that the authors of these models don't hold to simply because Silver says, "I’ve always found this choice to be counterintuitive." Silver's bizarre new dependent variable, however, helps him make his case because, as he writes, this choice "increases the error rate of the models so that they are about twice as large."

2. A Real Political Scientist Pays Attention to The Comparative Political Science Literature: If the connection between the economy and election results was as tenuous as Silver suggests, then the comparative date should support Silver's thesis.

3. A Real Political Scientist Understands that the Data is the Variable: In truth, there are no special, unmeasurable things when it comes to political science.  In the end, the data says what the data says. The bottom line is that the economy matters a great deal when it comes to predicting presidential election because of what we know about voters, not what we know about linear regression models. This is bad news for Obama and his supporters.  Those of us who really understand economics and politics predicted as early as January 2009 that the stimulus package would fail, that the economy would remain poor longer than Obama expected, and that this would doom his chances for a second term.  Thankfully, one of the benefits of age is that you get better at political science, not worse.

Being a prodigy is great, but - in the end - there is no substitute for long years of specialized study in your field of expertise.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Speaks Out at SOC912: Obama's Past More Important Than His Future

As you may know, my take on young Obama's ideological extremism has appeared in at least four books including Stanley Kurtz's meticulously researched Radical-In-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism. I've even been featured on the Fox News website. Nevertheless, I have never been on television with my story.  I've been featured in radio shows by Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, but I have not been able to penetrate the slightest edges of the mainstream video. As you will see in the following videos, it may be I'm not ready for prime time.

In a set of new YouTube videos, Mike Munzing has recorded one of my most complete, and lengthy talks on my intellectual path, my first impressions of the young Obama, my debate with Obama on Marxist theory and contemporary politics, and my take on the mysteries of the Obama biography. 

I think my main point is that Stanley Kurtz got my part of the narrative exactly right. As Kurtz points out, on pages 9-10 of his book, my take on Obama's Marxist socialist ideology was first published by NewsMax in February 2010. Later, my perspective was validated by a liberal author, David Remnick, who reported that Obama and many of his closest friends at Occidental College were socialists. Accordingly, in these new video tapes I articulate my views on the young Marxist-Leninist friends of Barack Obama including his sophomore year roommate Hasan Chandoo and my ex-girlfriend, Caroline Boss, who was the co-president of the Democrat Socialist Alliance at Occidental in 1980/1981. I'm still amazed that my testimony has not been featured on a television program.

At any rate, the second video in this series contains my controversial, politically incorrect first impression of young Obama and his friend Hasan Chandoo.  All in all, I think my take is original and refreshing compared to accounts in almost all the other early Obama literature.  (I've been reading these book as part of my effort to better understand how Obama fooled so many people into thinking he was always a pragmatic centrist.) While Kurtz's account is the most detailed and supported work on young Obama to date, I don't think liberals really appreciate the quality of Kurtz's account or what Jeffrey Hurt calls Obama's deep dishonesty. I think liberals are too quick to ignore voices like mine concerning the young Obama's ideological perspective.

Nevertheless, there is still very little media attention focused on Obama's long-standing ties to ideological extremists.  To remedy this, my good friend Mike Munzing videotaped my recent speech to the South Orange County 9-12 Group.  There are four videos in total.  I'm expecting that they will be useful to opposition researchers seeking to understand the reality of Obama's Marxist socialist roots. I'm particularly encouraged by the third video which discusses how I got out of my Marxist socialist ideology and ask where is Obama's conversion story?

I thought it got better as I made my way through the speech.  Check out the question and answer period for some of the most crowd pleasing moments.

One of the most interesting things about the evening is that Orly Taitz was in the audience.  You can hear her question in the question and answer portion of the YouTube video. Meanwhile, I can report that Investors Business Daily is aware of my face-to-face testimony on the young Barack Obama - I expect it will make a difference in 2012.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Gives a Rapid Response to New Irresponsible Attack by Error Prone OFGS Blogger

On the heels of my recent talk before the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated club, I learned that I was the recipient of another bizarre personal attack by Anna Stoddard, the elderly error-prone Oh For Goodness Sake  (OFGS) blogger. 

In this case, our expatriate, faux journalist completely misreads the work of liberal journalist David Remnick in the The Bridge.  Ms. Stoddard, for example, makes the tactical mistake of relying on the testimony of Mohammed Hasan Chandoo to refute my face-to-face observations of young Obama's revolutionary fervor. 

What Stoddard forgets is that in Remnick's book, Chandoo admits to being a Marxist.  Chandoo's girlfriend Margot Mifflin has reported that Chandoo was a Marxist.  Moreover, I can report to you that Chandoo was a Marxist.  It strikes me as delusional to assume that Chandoo - who really was Obama's sophomore year roommate - can be trusted to disconfirm young Obama's commitment to extremist ideology. 

For a great new article that puts young Obama's Marxist philosophy into a proper cultural context, please check out Micheal Leahy's just published article regarding the Indonesian roots of President Obama's radical perspective, "Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt."

Accordingly, it strikes me as both silly and rather insane for Anna Stoddard to rely on Chandoo's comments in the Feburary 2010 piece by Ronald Kessler regarding my debate with young Obama as credible evidence that Obama was not a Marxist.

Give me a break!

FBI chronicler Ron Kessler is so cool that he even catches Chandoo lying over the course of his interview with Kessler regarding how frequently Chandoo has seen Obama since he has been in office.  The irony of the Kessler story is that Chandoo tries to undercut my report while revealing himself to be a less than honest resource.

The mistaken prone Stoddard also forgets that Obama friend Wahid Hamid also confirmed that young Obama's friends where Marxist socialists and that Obama was in sync with them ideologically.  This, of course, implies that both Chandoo and Obama were Marxists at Occidental College and verifies my comments to Kessler, two months prior to the publication of The Bridge, asserting that young Obama held to a radical, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist perspective. 

During my time with young Obama I got to see a real revolutionary face-to-face.  I engaged in a strenuous debate with Obama that was witnessed by both Caroline Boss and Mohammed Hasan Chandoo.  It was a debate in which I meant to change young Obama's world view by giving him more accurate information about the real world of international politics and social change. 

Absolutely no one else has come close to describing the thinking of young Obama in the vivid detail I have provided in my earlier comments and articles at American Thinker.  I was a student of Marxist economics and political science at the time I debated young Obama.  I do not see how I could have been mistaken about his level of intellectual development regarding the changing field of Marxist socialist theory in the early 1980s. 

Since my story has come out, it has helped spark a broad range of new Obama literature and has been featured in books by Michael Savage, Paul Kengor, Stanley Kurtz and Jack Cashill.   In 2008, I was a lonely, isolated voice seeking to save the nation from a presidential candidate who was too radical and too dishonest to serve our country properly and to lead us to economic prosperity.  In 2012, however, it is not just me anymore.  Opposition researchers will have many articles and books to review to understand the depth of the connections that link young Obama to radical Marxist thought all the way through Frank Marshall Davis, to me, to Alice Palmer and eventually to our nation's number one unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers. 

It is about time that the American people woke up to the frightening reality that President Obama has been holding us back and harming our progress by applying sort of silly and ineffective measures that could only please a Soviet Union planning bureaucrat.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew's Take on Young Obama Featured in Fox Nation: Brief Comments in Response to Liberal Attackers

I thought I should share with you the news that my story on meeting young, Marxist Obama has finally made it to the pages of Fox Nation.  In the picture below, I'm speaking on "Why Barack Obama's Past Is More Important Than His Future" at the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated meeting on December 14, 2011.

The most prominent liberal response comes from an unnamed blogger, posting at No More Mister Nice Blog.  For a less thoughtful attack, see this piece at News Corpse.

It looks like the best the left can do is argue that I did not see Obama frequently enough to get an accurate view of his ideological beliefs as a sophomore at Occidental College.  My view, however, is that I have been vindicated by the subsequent Obama literature.  After all, a lot of liberals attacked my story on young Obama's ideological extremism in 2008.  Today, however, the Obama literature has moved much closer to my take on young Obama as a Marxist socialist than the technocratic take offered by James Kloppenberg in Reading Obama.

I replied to "Steve" at No More Mister Nice Blog with these comments:

I noticed your article discussing my take on young Obama's ideology was gaining traction on the Internet. I thought it would be a good idea for you to be aware of my responses to the serious charges you level in your article.

See, Dr. Drew Responds to Oh For Goodness Sake Blogger.

In addition, I think it is important to get out the story of my own conversion out of Marxist socialist thought. See, Dr. Drew's Conservative Conversion Story

All in all, I find it difficult to understand why reasonable people don't accept my story after David Remnick published The Bridge. It seems perfectly clear to me that the Obama literature has moved in the direction I indicated was correct instead of the direction suggested by Prof. Kloppenberg in his book, Reading Obama.

My take on young Obama has also been supported by substantial research done by Stanley Kurtz in his book, Radical-In-Chief and by Jack Cashill's Deconstructing Obama. Given the large number of publications that are consistent with my take on young Obama's ideological extremism, I would expect bloggers like you to confront the evidence and not engage in abusive ad hominem attacks. Please feel free to print this in your blog if it is helpful to you and your readers.

The end of the story was priceless since "Steve" wrote back only to say: "I have nothing to say to anyone who uses "research" and "Jack Cashill" in the same sentence. Don't bother me again. You're an idiot."

All in all, I think Obama is in trouble. I don't think it is plausible to suggest I was mistaken about young Obama's extremist ideology.
 
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew on Huckabee GOP Candidate Forum - I Missed the Studio Audience

I spent the evening live blogging the Huckabee FOX News GOP Candidate Forum for Sulia.  My sense is that Gingrich consolidated his front runner status tonight. He was lucky to be the first person. I'll bet that viewership declined over the course of the debate. I think Gingrich enjoys a lot of advantages right now because of his front runner status. It must give him great confidence that even though he has made all these mistakes in the past, many voters are forgiving him and expecting him to be a stonger, better president. It's hard to be intimidated when you are leading in the polls.

I can report that Gingrich is a sincere student of Washington. I was surprised to learn that for over two decades, Gingrich has taught at the United States Air Force's Air University. He is the longest-serving teacher of the Joint Flag Officer Warfighting Course. I've met both Obama and Gingrich face-to-face. There is no way that Obama is as bright or as informed as Gingrich.

I was glad that neither Cain or Huntsman were there tonight. I think this format would have gotten even more tedious if they were included in this debate.

All in all, I see Ron Paul as being as much of an ideologue as Barack Obama. This is why he occasionally hits home with a punch. I think ideologies endure because they have some compelling insights than endure.  I think Ron Paul is a living example of how far you can go in life by rigidly sticking to an ideology. Obama’s ideology, in contrast, is Indonesian socialism – socialism with an anti-colonial twist and a good dose of Islamic sensibilities.

What were the best moments? I think Rick Perry did surprisingly well at the very beginning when it looked like he was less distracted the normal. I also like the way that Bachmann discussed how states would find ways to cooperate even in the absence of a strong federal government. I think Romney has got his answer down pat for why Romneycare looks so much like Obamacare, but why that does not really matter.

What surprised me tonight? The format gave me a sharper focus on each candidate as if I was looking at them through a pure microscope lens. What I saw, however, pretty much confirmed the basic conventional wisdom regarding each candidate.

What would I change? Bring back the studio audience. I missed them in this debate. Sometimes I feel like the audience has a better grasp on reality than the candidates. I think we can still learn a lot from the one guy in the audience that suddenly shouts out: You lie!

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew on Meeting Young Obama - Excerpts from Speech to Capistrano Republican Women's Federated

I pulled together the highlights of the talk I gave at the Capistrano Republican Women's Federated Club on April 22, 2011.  This was the first time I ever gave this talk.  As you will see, the audience is very supportive and attentive. 

After watching myself on this video tape, I'm reminded why it is important for political leaders to view their tapes as part of their effort to improve their presentations. 

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.