John David Rice-Cameron can trace his conservative roots to his middle school years. Back then, his father would often have talk radio on during rides home from school or tennis practice.

“Sometimes my dad would listen to Rush Limbaugh and he would kind of argue with him,” recalls Rice-Cameron, 20, a sophomore at Stanford University. “I just found myself agreeing with basically everything Rush Limbaugh was saying.”

Rice-Cameron’s parents are Democrats. His mother, Susan Rice, served in the Obama administration, first as U.N. ambassador, then as National Security Advisor. But despite his parents’ political leanings, “they believe extensively in debate and engaging the other side and exposing people to different viewpoints,” he said.

Rice-Cameron started listening to talk radio on his own. That’s when he discovered Mark Levin, saying the firebrand pundit became his “ultimate political hero.”

“He’d talk about John Locke, and so I’d go and read some John Locke. He’d talk about John Smith, so I’d go and read John Smith. He’d talk about the Federalist Papers, and so I read those,” Rice-Cameron said. “I discovered the intellectual roots of liberty.”

Fast-forward to today, Rice-Cameron — recently described by one campus publication as “Stanford’s most outspoken political provocateur” — is taking his passion for liberty and advancing it at Stanford University, his mother’s alma mater, as president of the College Republicans.