What's your opinion of education in rural Africa?

But they're learning. Christina Carroll, a sophomore at the College of William and Mary, tells me that conservatives on her campus are afraid to speak out and that she's trying to do something about it. She took a women's studies course last semester and the professor so disliked her conservative take that she got kicked out of class once for her opinions.

Pressed, she's vague. "I believe, I'm not exactly sure, I think that day we were talking about education in rural Africa."

"She kicked you out because you disagreed with her about education in rural Africa?"

"Well, it's more that she got fed up with me in general."

Firm in her understanding of the power of the isolated anecdote, Carroll is struggling to gain command of the convincing details. Still, she's in good company. She is being tutored.

What Bay Buchanan and Christina Hoff Sommers and YAF and Clare Boothe Luce and all the other organizations courting campus conservatives know is that the way to counter "statistically challenged" progressives is not with better statistics (after all, those might be hard to find) but with good stories. Passion motivates.

And in the battle for young minds in the academy, it's all about perception. Targeted attacks and cultivating a few loud voices can generate media attention to the conservative presence on campus. A little money, well spent, can create an illusion of discontent. And, when speaking in neighborly, over-the-fence yarns, sometimes all you need is one good anecdote.