This is John Campbell speaking: can a pork-busting Randian lead the GOP?

• Author: Weigel, David
• Position: Grand Old Party, Ayn Rand's influence

IF REP. JOHN Campbell (R-Calif.) said his book shelf was a time capsule, a memorial to the modern GOP, you'd believe him. Here is Stephen Slivinski's Buck Wild, a jeremiad against the Bush-era big-spending Republicans. Here is Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept, the terrifying tale of how "radical Islam is destroying the West from within." Here is one of Watergate felon Chuck Colson's bestsellers on how Christ can save your life.

Less predictable are the tomes bookending the collection: not one but two hardbound copies of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, a favorite among many supporters of free markets and limited government. "Those aren't my only two copies," Campbell says, laughing. "Atlas Shrugged is the book I give to our interns after they spend a summer here, working for free. I consider it to be the authoritative work on the power of the individual."

It is late September in Washington, D.C. Another Rand disciple is in the news: Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, is on the talk shows promoting his autobiography. Like Greenspan, Campbell is upset that the Republican Party has been growing the government, hiking spending with funds that don't exist. But Greenspan is out of public life. The 52-year-old Campbell, an Orange County, California, car salesman who arrived in D.C. just two years ago, is one of his party's fastest-rising stars.

"He's an absolutely fantastic member of the Republican conference," says a senior GOP aide. "I think he's become the heir apparent to lead the Republican Study Committee," the antitax, anti-spending caucus founded in 1973 by then-insurgent proto-Reaganite Republicans. Campbell currently heads the RSC's Budget and Spending Taskforce.

Outside of an actual leadership post or a committee chairmanship, carrying the RSC's banner is a House Republican's surest path to media prominence. But Campbell differs from RSC stars such as former chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Pence combined a fairly rote antispending message with heaping helpings of culture war conservatism. In September 2007, for example, Pence advanced a resolution condemning MoveOn.org for a newspaper ad that criticized Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.

That sort of politics doesn't animate Campbell. He is one of those Republicans who, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), blames the GOV's lax spending discipline for its election losses. He attained his office after a special election in December 2005 to replace Rep. Christopher Cox, a...