He may be a conservative now, but Steven Bradbury has liberal roots.

The acting chief of the Justice Department’s influential Office of Legal Counsel campaigned door-to-door for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and volunteered for Democrat Gary Hart’s presidential primary campaign in 1984. And the 49-year-old — reviled by Democrats for his legal work on interrogation techniques and warrantless wiretapping — is a big fan of the Grateful Dead and Neil Young.