carter and jim roark who run my desserts addition committee -- dissertation commitee. i learned so much from them and my doctoral dissertation was a history of evangelical higher education in the south between 1865 and roughly world war i. i didn't end up teaching but i ended up using all that he learn later for what ended up doing at the christian coalition and now faith and tree dom. it's kind 0 -- freedom. it's interesting the wail my life took a turn i didn't expect but i still ended up benefiting so much from that doctoral education. >> host: how did you come to your politics? >> guest: i think the belles way i could describe it, was raised in a republican household and that was my background but the way i really kind of got fired up and engaged was a guy from california named ronald reagan. i was a student at the university of georgia. he ran for president in 1980. i was the chairman of the college republicans on the largest state university in jimmy carter's home state of georgia, and nothing against carter personally. i have great admire for him as a -- admirat