College Republicans tackle wrong issues

Since the 1960s, liberal organizations have infested American colleges like NIU. These groups have held numerous rallies and events promoting abortion, gay marriage, anti-American propaganda and countless other left-wing agendas.

Thank the good Lord NIU has the College Republicans who constantly battle these liberal forces ... oh wait, never mind. They don't.

Since my first encounter with the CR in 2004, I have been consistently let down by the group's lack of interest in promoting conservative issues at NIU.

Rather than advancing conservative ideology or standing up to liberal detractors, the leadership of the CR has regularly and cowardly shied away from any such confrontations. Instead, the CR has focused on helping politicians win elections.

Helping Republicans is fine and all, but the group limits itself by not voicing itself on campus. They are simply lap dogs for local politicians.

Sure, the College Republicans recently held a poorly advertised debate with the College Democrats, but the match was more of a glorified speech reading contest and few participants talked with conviction or passion.

In addition, the debate barely happened. According to the NIU College Democrats Web site, CR leadership constantly canceled meetings leaving many wondering if they were even interested in defending the main tenants of their platform.

According to the CR Web site as of Feb. 28, well ... former CR chairman John Acardo wishes all CR members a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Unfortunately, confusion and disarray are all too pervasive in the CR. But what can one expect from a group that had three chairmen in this year alone?

It wasn't always this way. The College Republicans were once led by strong, convicted members who had spines big enough to take on liberal threats.

I spoke with Ted McCarron, former chairman of the CR from 1994-95. He told me the CR was a very active group here at NIU when he got involved in the late 1980s. According to Ted, the CR used to hold anti-Soviet rallies, pro-life meetings, pro-gun meetings and other conservative-orientated activities.

The current problem started in 1996. McCarron told me "once James Barr took over as CR chairman, the group was never the same. Instead of promoting conservative initiatives like my predecessors and I did, Barr steadily moved the group to the left and reorganized it into a faction where local Republicans, conservative or not, could utilize cheap labor for their election campaigns."

McCarron said he began to see heavier involvement in the SA by CR officers. I believe this is one of the major reasons the CR doesn't do much on campus.

Leading the SA takes time. These unconcerned CR officers spent more time advancing their SA careers than promoting a CR agenda on campus, which resulted in the decay of the group.

Over the years, Barr's successors continued this tradition. The last four CR chairmen were heavily involved in the SA/CAB. Instead of stepping aside to let others who genuinely cared about the group takeover, these weak-kneed leaders selfishly hung onto the group, only to let it die further.

I asked current CR chairwoman Paulette Tolene about her plans for on-campus activities. While she is excited and dedicated to advancing CR initiatives, unfortunately, as always, they are off-campus.

She proposed bringing in more Republican candidates to talk to the group and recruit members for helping in elections. Like I said before, helping political candidates is fine, but there should be more to the CR than being slaves to politicians.

While I believe Tolene's sincerity and optimism, I do not believe the way to save the CR from mediocrity is to do more of the same. The group needs on-campus publicity by holding rallies or protests advancing conservative initiatives within the Republican platform.

Until this happens, conservatives will have virtually no voice on campus limiting academic diversity. Printer-friendly

The Young Republicans can take heart from the SCOTUS & Roberts decision allowing Military Recruiters the same access on campus (law schools too - hehe) and know that their time of being discriminated against has run it's course.

A Roberts SC is going to transcend politics with legal decisions that will literally destroy the liberal gains since the 1970s!

I read a couple of years ago in the WSJ, that Vanderbilt is really going all out to import some smart students via monetary incentives, big ones. Can a smart intellectual Yankee Jew find happiness at Vanderbilt? That was in part what the article was about. It seemed to be a bit of heavy lifting.

I never saw that article, but I don't doubt it. It's been more than a few years since I was a student there. Vandy has always been "more Southern" than, say, Dook, but it has always attracted a substantial number of students from Northern states -- more likely to be from the Midwest (Illinois, Ohio, Indiana) than from the Northeast (Dook seems to draw heavily from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey).

Its student body, then and now, skews toward preppy and rich, but there was/is a fair amount of diversity. More Oriental students than blacks when I was there. No idea what the Jewish percentage was -- not a lot, but enough to support one frat and one sorority which were each supposedly Jewish. Intellectuals? Sure, there were some. I avoided them. :-)

Many CR clubs won't even go as far as inviting big name conservative speakers to campus. They want to stay on the down low. I think this is for two reasons...

1. Many CR's have political goals/jobs in mind, and the ones who don't are just too busy with everything else

2. The threat of the group losing sponsorship on campus if the club does anything too rash. (Ex-Disbandment by the university for conservative activism, harassment of group members (everything from verbal threats to lower/failing grades on papers, and harassment by University officials in general). Therefore, they don't want to generate controversy or invite big name speakers to campus.

The UW madison CR club stands out, but I still think that they put way too much time into political campagins. This is because the University nearly took away their registered student org status over some sort of direct activism tactic, something that leftists do all the time but don't get into trouble for.

Translaton: we want to make Vandy look like every other top 20 university. No unique southerness to the place should survive. Let's import Jersetyites and turn into the friendly place that is my alma mater, Emory. (*pukes*) Just fill it to the brim with kids who really wanted to go to Dartmouth or Cornell but settled because they didn't make the cut. That would be the worst thing that Vandy could do.

Sorry, the attitude of Vandy's president is really off-putting in my eyes. He also saw Jews as a means of elevating their average SAT scores.

Well, a movement doesn't happen by itself. Obviously, the young Repubs at NIU are not motivated/repulsed enough to get politically involved. Being a temp service for political candidates may be boot camp for the grunts. Taking the initiative on campus issues is the "officers training school" for tomorrow's leaders.

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