John J. Pitney Jr. — less formally, Jack — is a famous conservative political scientist. He teaches at Claremont McKenna College, in California. And he is the latest guest on my Q&A podcast. We talk about his life, his thought, and America, basically. And in a half-hour or so!

Pitney grew up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on the wrong side of the tracks. Parents in this area tended not to have gone to college. But their children did.

Jack went to Union College in Schenectady, the alma mater of Chester A. Arthur (“the Al D’Amato of his day,” says Pitney). Then he went to Yale, where he studied under Robert Dahl, the eminent political scientist. A lefty but a gentleman, says Pitney (and a true scholar).

On our podcast, we talk about Pitney’s teaching career. Among his students has been Heidi Cruz, incidentally. We talk about activism and ideology on campus. Are students too drugged, ideologically, to learn? Obsessed with their race, sex, and pronouns and all that?

We also talk about the conservative movement and the GOP. Pitney once worked for the Republican party, and he describes himself as a conservative in the Jack Kemp style. He left the party last year. He is now an independent.

I ask him about his media diet (“Whaddaya read?”). About California (“Still a golden state, despite the terrible problems?”). About statesmen he admires (beginning with Lincoln). About “the politics of autism” (on which he is an expert). And more.

Jack Pitney is a conservative brain and an excellent teacher. Again, to listen to him, go here.

One more thing, if you will allow a little home-state boosterism, so to speak: His conservatism was formed when he started reading National Review at age 13. He corresponded with WFB. His mother still keeps the letters from WFB.

And why not?