Political parties on campus vie for students

The Young Democrats and College Republicans represent two political views on the GC&SU campus; however, the College Republicans have dominated the campus, something the Young Democrats are looking to change.

The Young Democrats was started a few weeks ago with the help of freshman Emily Currington, a nursing student and president of the Young Democrats.

“I knew the College Republicans were popular on campus, so I was really excited to see that the Young Democrats have some involvement on campus,” Currington said.

Senior Joannah Hollis is the chair of the College Republicans and credits the popularity of the organization to their involvement on campus.

“We try to be active on campus by constantly having recruitment tables out and being active in things that are going on statewide,” said Hollis, a political science major.

Being active on campus led to a boom in the number of members in the College Republicans.

“We went from having 50 members at the beginning of 2004 to over 500,” Hollis said.

Currently, the College Republicans have almost 600 members.

Currington said that the Young Democrats, who have only 15 members, have had a hard time recruiting and wants the organization to be more involved on campus.

“We want to do fundraising, but first we’re trying to make a name for ourselves,” Currington said. “We’re trying to get more people involved and get the word out.”

Freshman Ansley Larango decided to become involved with the Young Democrats because she believed that there was only one political view being expressed on campus.

“I thought it was unfair that there was only one political group, and I saw that (the Young Democrats) were meeting, and I wanted to get involved,” said Larango, a nursing student and vice-president of the Young Democrats. “I wanted to make it an even playing field.”

Larango also wants to change the apathy many college students have towards politics.

“People seem to be non-partisan or just not involved, and I thought if I got involved I could change that,” Larango said. “I really want to get a lot more people registered to vote, not necessarily for the Democrats side, but just get them more concerned about the issues, to make them care.”

Hollis wants the College Republicans to use their influence to help students gain a better understanding of politics.

“Our goal is to get young people, while they are in college, to gain a good political stance and to help them figure out in what direction they’re going,” Hollis said.

Freshman Jason White served as the vice-chair for the Southern Region of Georgia, a division of the Georgia Teenage Republicans, before coming to school at GC&SU.

White said he decided to join the College Republicans after meeting Hollis.

“I met Joannah at a conservative student conference in Washington D.C.,” White said. “She had such a great political mind that I really wanted to join the College Republicans, so I could be more involved in the community here in Milledgeville, statewide and nationally.”

Currington understands that the Young Democrats have fewer members than the College Republicans, but she said the numbers do not matter.

“It’s not a race for us right now,” Currington said. “We want to get more people aware about politics and get more people involved.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 21 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry