My own conversations with people who knew Santorum in college support this view. Bob O'Connor — who in 1994 told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "I have never had a student so blindly ambitious" — told me, "He was a very memorable student because he was an unusual one." Even in policy-oriented classes, like American Local Government and Administration, "he didn't ask a whole lot of questions, or talk, about policy and policy positions and what would work best. He did ask an unusual amount about what policies would be more popular, rather than engage in debate about trade-offs, and what would be more effective, and why."