By Eric van den Berg

Even though more than 50 million Americans voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 elections, some Republicans on campus feel displaced because of their political views.

As Nathan Yadgar, member of the the University’s College Republicans, recently said in the group’s publication Freedom, ”Conservatives are shunned, and many conservative students are truly afraid to express their opinions.”

Luckily enough for the small number of neo-cons feeling astray on this campus, the College Republicans organization have offered a safe haven for as long as three years. Conservatives who want to feel concurrence on controversial subjects such as Iraq, abortion and gay marriage need not roam further than 209 Student Center, the College Republicans’ office, to find a like-minded soul.

Edward F. Murphy, Chairman and Founder of the College Republicans, is no stranger to the hostile political climate. Emotions directed at the College Republicans generally range from apathy to hatred.

“Most students just don’t care,” Murphy said.

The politically conscious part of the student body doesn’t seem to appreciate the right-wing asserting itself on campus. Murphy cites a number of incidents, an example of which involved the destruction of copies of Freedom, allegedly by the left-wing student organization Students Against Injustice, (SAI).

Murphy said, “We’re pretty sure they were behind it. They want to censor us.”

SAI denies the allegations, but then again, the list of likely suspects might be much longer. SAI isn’t the only organization that holds the junior GOP in ill-favor. Vice-Chairman of the College Republicans, Bradley H. Smallberg, warned his fellow right-wingers that a speech sponsored by the College Republicans next Wednesday had come under threats from an African-American campus organization. He claimed that the organization made clear that it would protest the event, but had refused his offer to have an opportunity to speak on the floor, casting doubt upon the nature of the protest. The name of the event, Slavery Reparations: a dumb and dangerous idea, might be to blame for the bad blood. Smallberg, however, remained steadfast.

“Don’t be afraid,” Smallberg said to his fellow Republicans. “These people have been arrested before. We can always call Public Safety.”

One might wonder why the College Republicans are still going at it after three years of being shunned. However, conflict is something the College Republicans seem to thrive upon.

Murphy said, “We are basically a counterforce. We’re needed to balance things out here on campus.”

Murphy inadvertently demonstrates his love for controversy when he tells another tale of how the College Republicans’ First Amendment right came under dire threat through the meddling interference of foul-mouthed anonymous vandals.

“We had Rabbi Marc Gellman and Father Thomas Hartman of the God Squad come over. We had a sign hanging out of Axinn Library advertising the event,” Murphy said. “Twice that day, people were writing obscene things on it. It was so uncalled for. [God Squad staff-members] pulled it down very quickly, we didn’t even see it.”

Murphy regrets not getting his hands on this bit of anti-propaganda.

“We wanted to get it and print it in Freedom. That would have given us more legitimacy. We like that. When people come out to protest us, that’s great! I mean, that might make the papers,” Murphy said.

It seems no publicity is worse than bad publicity. However, if the mainstream press deems the College Republicans unworthy of its attention, Freedom, never will. On its pages, the reader finds, alongside an advertisement for a Chinese takeout offering Kosher foods, an invitation to attend the next College Republican meeting. The slogan “Find out what the vast right-wing conspiracy is all about!” is supposed to entice students to mix and mingle with the conservative hardliners.

“We tend to be a little bit more conservative,” Murphy said. “We are far right, there is no doubt about that. If you’re a moderate, you won’t join us.”

This leads to a certain amount of discord with the real GOP party-line.

“I heard plenty people say that Bush wasn’t tough enough on Iraq, people were saying ‘we should swarm the entire [expletive] country’,” Murphy said.

Murphy’s stance on gay marriage is also more radical than one would expect to hear from, for example, Dick Cheney.

“Being gay is a choice,” Murphy said. “I don’t agree with it, it opens up a Pandora’s box. If we allow gay marriage you’re going to have guys going ‘hey, we’re all gay partners, let’s have orgies on weekends!’ It’s going to ruin society.”

Murphy maintains his position on other issues as well. The Bush administration’s cuts on Pell grants, which according to federal research have reduced federal contributions to students’ personal budgets by as much $270 million, do not strike Murphy as a reason for discord with the GOP.

“I think he’s spending too much anyway, so I understand when he wants to cut certain parts of the budget,” Murphy said.

With this political agenda the College Republicans are expected to regularly discuss politics with each other; but, according to Murphy, that’s not the case.

“We don’t sit around saying ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ You pretty much know what’s up,” Murphy said.

The political agenda of the College Republicans grants any campus organization its right of existence. Visiting the meetings of what some might call hardcore conservatives, the only fact that strikes one as an assertion of right-wing values is the slandering talk of other, left-leaning, campus groups.

Labeling SAI ‘communists’ is a nice way of reaffirming your own group identity. Political activism consists of the occasional voter registration drive or politically-flavored excursion. The latter being, true to student nature, as much about booze as anything else. The true priorities of any student organization were eloquently expressed by Vice Chairman Smallberg at the last College Republican meeting, when he offered support to the attendees of an excursion to Albany, New York’s State Capitol.

“I don’t know how drunk you all were last weekend, but some might remember that we actually ran into some people that were on Pataki’s staff. It’s all good amongst your own,” Smallberg said.

As long as you’re not gay, pro-government, radically atheist, pro-choice, dependent on financial-aid, environmentalist, in favor of slave reparations or in any other way even the slightly left-wing, you’ll love the College Republicans.