My Journey Through Conservatism

Since this is my first post on this site, I thought it would be appropriate to detail my experience with conservatism.

Before I could differentiate between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, two driving forces in my life made me receptive to being conservative later.  The first was being raised in a Catholic household.  My parents weren't very political when I was little, but they were religious.  Looking back on it, my faith precluded me from accepting the premises of the left.  The other influence was my inherent dislike of politcal correctness.  I remember being in 5th grade and my teacher held a debate on the question "Should we tear down a forest to build a mall?"  I was the only one who rose above a sentimental love of animals and thought that building a mall would be great.  The first political commentator that I really liked was John Stossel.  He would be on 20/20 after TGIF (keep in mind I was 10 or 11 at this time).  What he was saying matched what I felt about extremist enviromentalists and spending boondoggles.

I first really got into politcs during the 2000 election campaign.  It was very interesting before election day and what happened after only further cemented my interested in the political game.  By the age of 14, I was watching political shows and listening to talk radio.  By this time, I actively identified as a conservative.  This was of course the time in which Bush was actually popular and commentators spoke of such things as a "permanent majority".  But throughout high school, being a conservative was generally rather fun.

In a rather ironic twist, at the very time that the Bush house of cards began to fall apart, I shipped off to one of the most liberal colleges in the country, American University in Washington DC.  Hurricane Katrina struck on the very first day of classes my freshman year.  I have lived out the entire time in which the Republican Party fell apart in the great liberal bastion of Washington DC.  Despite our difficulties nationally, I have had a fine time being conservative in DC.  I have interned at such conservative organizations as the Media Research Center and Townhall.com.  I have had a great time attending conservative conferneces.  Most of all, I got involved in the AU College Republicans.  Now entering my senior year, I have been the Secretary for two years running.  We have been extraodinarily successful.  We created national headlines when we brought Karl Rove to campus and a bunch of leftists laid down in front of his car.  I have had the honor of interviewing Edwin Feulner, Sam Brownback, and Jonah Goldberg for our CR newsletter.  I have had a great time despite all the doom and gloom nationally.

I began questioning much of the prevailing wisdom in conservatism by 2006.  At that point I realized that criticizing the administrations war conduct was not "liberal", it was necessary to victory.  I shouldn't have been surprised that we lost in 2006.  When the AUCRs volunteered to help candidates in 2006, everyone we helped lost.  We did a trip to Philadelphia to help Rick Santorum, we knocked on doors in Northern Virginia for Geroge Allen, and we worked the polls on Election Day for Michael Steele in Prince Georges County, MD.  It was the worst political day of my short life.  I was at the Michael Steele "victory party" when I found out my representative, Melissa Hart, had lost when I didn't think she was being seriously contested.  It was a shame to see a great candidate like Michael Steele being weighed down by the mistakes of the administration.  I realized that something was amiss, and I don't think the problems have been solved yet.

I hope that in my blog I can help with the process of the conservative movement to once again connect with the American people.  The damning data present in Josh Kahn's post doesn't necessarily surprise me.  I have sensed that for a time that simply being more conservative won't solve the problem.  I think that conservatism has gone from being a set of common sense solutions to too often being an "ideology", a fixed set of beliefs that can never be changed.  I think this needs to change, and something like The Next Right seems to understand this.