Years later in 2007, The New Republic's Ryan Lizza interviewed then-senator Obama and found him still "at home talking Alinskian jargon about 'agitation,'" and fondly recalling organizing workshops where he had learned Alinsky-esque concepts like "being predisposed to other people's power."
In those years, Obama was schooled by disciples of Alinsky himself, including Mike Kruglik, who remembered Obama as "the best student he ever had," a "natural ... undisputed master of agitation."