Popping up in my inbox lately, and on some conservative blogs, is the allegation that Barack Obama was once a member of the Communist/Socialist/secretive/evil New Party, which is based (reasonably) on a New Party publication describing him in passing as a member.
When this first emerged, I called up the founder of the New Party, a University of Wisconsin professor named Joel Rogers, who objected both to the characterization of the party and Obama’s relationship to it.