Students learn about politics at Boot Camp
Politically active college students were shipped to Boot Camp for two days last week.
A two-day conference organized by the Utah State University College Republicans club called the Boot Camp of Politics, held on Friday and Saturday, brought college students from all over the state, as well as various conservative political candidates and other distinguished speakers to the USU campus.
The purpose of the conference was to teach students how to organize grassroots political movements on their respective campuses in preparation for the 2004 elections.
Among the speakers for Saturday morning was gubernatorial candidate John M. Huntsman, Jr. who talked about the important role students can play in elections.
“I happen to think that university students in this state, with the number of institutions we have, could turn certain elections. Their ability to organize, their ability to get the vote out,” Huntsman said, “Their ability to get involved, which they should be doing, could play a leading role in the outcome of certain elections in 2004. I’m a strong believer in that.”
Huntsman said he was impressed with the number of students who were willing to come to a Saturday morning conference on politics.
He also praised USU as being a “stellar and outstanding institution.”
“I think that USU is one of our shining-star institutions, not just in Utah but in the Western United States,” Huntsman said.
Besides the candidates in attendance, more than 60 students from other schools in Utah came to attend the Boot Camp.
The program was designed to train students on how to support conservative candidates and to teach the students how to run and win campaigns.
The camp was put on by the USU Leadership Institute and was organized and brought to USU by the College Republicans club. Representatives from various Utah chapters of the club, from Southern Utah University to Utah Valley State College, were in attendance.
College Republicans is a club with chapters at college campuses all over the nation which is devoted to making students aware of the political issues that surround them and offering students the opportunity to participate in local campaigns, said Tom Robins, state chairman of the club. The USU chapter continues to grow with this year’s membership reaching 300.
“We’re getting together because we’re going to make the difference,” Robins said. “College Republicans is dedicating itself to be the grassroots force of the 2004 elections.”
Robins said organizing grassroots political movements involves organizing volunteers that live in the community to help run political campaigns, register voters, drop off door hangers, put up lawn signs, write editorials in local newspapers, and other such activities.
“We’re going to make an impact from George W. Bush all the way down to our local state representatives,” Robins said. “There is no better organization to do that than college students, we have energy, more free time, we are passionate, want to make a difference, and we care about what’s going on.”
USU chapter Vice Chairman Woodson Witt said, “I’d argue that we are one of, if not the most active club on campus.”
Witt said the club organizes activities such as the Run for the Elephants race and a parade float for Homecoming weekend, as well as other activities like showing free movies at local movie theaters. The club also does fund raising to pay for conservative speakers to visit the campus to offset the usually liberal views of the speakers invited to the campus Arts and Lectures series.
Witt said, “The goal of College Republicans is not to push conservative views on others, we just want for there to be a balance. We want to get politics out to the students and to get them aware of what’s going on.”
To help reach their goals, members of College Republicans are planning to attend a conference this January in Washington, D.C. put on by the Republican Party.
The Leadership Institute, who put on the Boot Camp of Politics conference, is a non-profit, non-partisan conservative organization based in Washington, D.C. which, since 1979, has enrolled more than 30,000 students in programs similar to the one held here at USU teaching students how to run and win campaigns.
According to information provided by the Leadership Institute, the institute offers training seminars and workshops, an employment placement service, and an intern program. Most of the trainings, however, are done at their center in Washington, D.C. Only eight or nine such training conferences per year are held at college campuses outside of Washington.
-sjeppesen@cc.usu.edu