The ongoing Republican primaries and the upcoming presidential election have brought new leadership and new life to the Sinclair College Republicans.
\n\u201cWe had to basically resurrect [the club],\u201d said Sarah Scott, the club\u2019s president.
\nThe new leadership has been with the club since early February. The group has about 20 students on its mailing list, and they hope to increase membership as the 2012 presidential election draws near.
\n\u201cEssentially we seek to promote conservatism and the ideals of the Republican Party,\u201d said Sam Bain, PR director and liaison to the state College Republicans. \u201cFree market capitalism, economic freedom, individual liberty, life\u2026these are the essential tenets of the Republican Party, and we seek to promote them by having open discussions about what they mean in current issues.\u201d
\nAlthough the club is focusing on increasing membership, they have already tabled at club events and have done some volunteering for local candidates. In April, members will be attending a College Republicans convention at Kent State with 25 chapters and \u201chundreds of college republicans from around the Buckeye State\u201d in attendance, said Bain.
\nPast leaders in the Sinclair College Republicans have gone on to become active in politics, and several of the club\u2019s new leaders have their own political ambitions.
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to run for office locally myself, ten years down the road,\u201d said Bain. \u201cI\u2019d say I\u2019ve learned a lot, just from being involved with campaigns and being involved with the club, and discussing ideas with other students\u2026bouncing ideas off one another.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve worked on so many campaigns it\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d said Scott. \u201cI love campaigns, and that\u2019s what I want to do.\u201d
\nOther students join the club to learn more about politics and to help local candidates.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know too much about politics and I wanted to get to know more about it,\u201d said Anna Shin, the vice president. \u201cI wanted to see the Republican view, and a lot of times we\u2019ll see a lot of different opposing views.\u201d
\nThe club cannot endorse individual candidates, although they can distribute campaign literature for a variety of candidates.
\n\u201cWe encourage members to go volunteer for their preferred candidate,\u201d said Bain. Scott said that two local candidates have already approached them for campaign volunteers.
\nKathleen and Jennifer Sooy, the club\u2019s advisors and faculty members in Political Science, said that the club was formally established in 2004.
\n\u201cWe were the first political club on campus,\u201d said Kathleen Sooy, \u201cSo there was a long process to get approval from all the appropriate parties.\u201d
\n\u201cWe were very supportive of Sinclair having political organizations or clubs so students can learn about political parties and the campaign process,\u201d said Jennifer Sooy. \u201cOur point is to promote civic education and involvement in the community, and more importantly to help students learn who they are in terms of their political ideology.\u201d
\nPolitical club membership at Sinclair tends to wax and wan, and membership is often highest in election years, according to Kathleen Sooy.
\nAlthough a Progressive Club was started in 2008, Jennifer Sooy said it \u201cnever really got off the ground\u201d and fell apart after the election. The advisors have an open invitation to other potential political clubs to use their constitution to make it easier for them to get started. Scott said she would love to see a Democratic club on campus.
\n\u201cYou need to have a very energetic, mature, committed president to be able to continue participating\u2026continue to recruit, continue to hold functions,\u201d said Jennifer Sooy. \u201cWe have spirited, enthusiastic, interested officers. All of them have something to offer. We\u2019re very pleased with the caliber of the [student leaders].\u201d
\n\u201cThey\u2019re very strong, very capable, and certainly very interested,\u201d said Kathleen Sooy.
\nThe advisors said that participation and leadership in a political club not only strengthens leadership skills, but also exposes students to the world of politics and to the complexity of the political system.
\n\u201cStudents [need to] appreciate the intricacy of our system and their role in it,\u201d said Jennifer Sooy. \u201cWe have to engage <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ongoing Republican primaries and the upcoming presidential election have brought new leadership and new life to the Sinclair College Republicans. \u201cWe had to basically resurrect [the club],\u201d said Sarah Scott, the club\u2019s president. The new leadership has been with the club since early February. The group has about 20 students on its mailing list, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1VM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10011,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions\/10011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}