On October 24th, Sean Niemic and I were lucky enough to get away from the cold weather of Minnesota to fly to Elon, North Carolina for Youth Leader Training by the Leadership Institute. With free airfare, hotels, and food, Sean and I had no idea what to expect, but anytime we are offered non-University Dining Services food, we agree to whatever task results in said free food. Thus, we found ourselves flying to North Carolina as our peers at the U finished out Friday classes.
The Leadership Institute is a non-partisan group based in Arlington, VA dedicated to training the next generation of conservative leaders. Our training was to be an intense weekend of all aspects of campus action that should be undertaken by conservatives. We arrived Friday to an overcast night, but, it was sixty degrees, a drastic improvement over the thirty-five degree weather we left in Minnesota. At the hotel, I endured some ribbing from the desk clerk for sharing a last name with Bill O’Reilly of the “O’Reilly Factor”. He didn’t realize that the hotel was full of conservative leaders, many of whom were jealous of my name similarities.
Saturday began way too early by my standards— eight in the morning. It was an intense overview of almost everything a conservative needs to know to be successful on campus. In the morning, we worked on advertising and creating good attention-grabbing posters for events. We weren’t allowed computers to create these posters, but luckily there was a good artist from American University to make our group’s “Free Trade is Fair Trade” poster. Many potential ways of reaching students were discussed, many of which we will put into action in the future. One idea we are going to do in the spring semester is go around and ask students their political preferences— “liberal”, “conservative”, “libertarian”, or “something else”. We were told this would not only help show the political makeup of campus, but can be used as a recruiting tool, asking those identifying as “conservative” or “libertarian” to sign up for our group’s email list. I found this idea to be great, but because of the cold weather in Minnesota, I have slotted this as a spring event!
Getting press attention was also a very important theme throughout the weekend. Conservatives tend to be—well, conservative, and consequently not terribly news worthy. Writing press releases and media advisories were covered in great detail, but creating news was very important as well. One point that was hammered all weekend was that there is nothing for conservatives to “conserve” on college campuses anymore. Many of the LI presenters stressed that with America moving so far to the left (where Barack Obama, the most liberal Senator, is the Democratic nominee, and John McCain is considered a far right
conservative) that it’s time that we abandon traditional conservative methods of activism (namely, writing papers) and start protesting and making noise. Everyone in attendance was given Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals, so we could learn proper tactics. Although Alinsky wrote the book for radicalleftists, his ideas can also be used by the right, we were told. Late afternoon on Saturday, we enjoyed a provocative presentation titled “What the Left is Up To” which provided disturbing insight into how far left the country has gone. The presentation explored how mainstream radical leftist ideals have become. Though not everyone on the left is an extremist, it was pointed out that very rarely are extremist leftists condemned by the rest of the left, whereas the far right is almost always condemned by the rest of the right. (this sentence is a bit confusing…maybe try to re-word it?)We also heard some hilarious stories of going undercover to learn what the far left is up to (hint: don’t shower—you’ll fit in better). The conservative movement was chastised for being too willing to compromise and concede positions, while the left has enjoyed huge gains in shaping policy in the last 40 years.
Following a dinner at from Olive Garden, Dr. Mike Adams, the guest speaker for the evening, continued the tone of “What the Left is Up To” with a hilariously sarcastic take on Bill Ayers. When he began speaking, he went on a tirade on how his introduction left out the most important part of his life—that he bombed a bunch of abortion clinics, wished he had bombed more, was guilty but got off on a technicality, and became a tenured professor.
Everyone in the audience laughed; we all recognized that no far right radical would ever get away with such acts, and would definitely not receive tenure at a University. Dr. Adams then pointed out the sad fact that if an extreme right-winger does something, he is condemned, while someone on the far left not only gets away with murder, but also gets tenure, and advises major politicians!
The reason for this, Dr. Adams said, is because although the specific tactics people like Bill Ayers have used taken (it sounds weird to say actions…done) are condemned, the reasoning behind them puts them “on the side of the angels” and such terrorists are given a free pass by the rest of the left. This saddened me, but it showed me how much work we as conservatives must do to overcome the biases in this country, and get back on the “right” track. Dr. Adams was a highly entertaining speaker and was a great way to end the first day. Sunday began slowly. The day was beautiful; the sun was out, but the building was locked. Being the helpful guy I am, I went around taking pictures of Elon University for use in this article. Though I wanted to spend all day outside, a security guard was located, and we hit the ground running. First on the agenda was fundraising and budgeting, two things that Sean and I have a very firm grasp on—so I worked on a campaign finance report. After the fundraising lesson, our Sunday speaker, Dr. John Baker, arrived. A consultant to the U.S. Justice Department, Dr. Baker spoke on constitutional law and judicial activism—andwhether the term really has any meaning. Though I found his speech to be incredibly interesting, others (like Sean) lacked my attention span. It was a highly informative speech, and we even received free copies of a bunch of the Federalist Papers! To close the day, we learned about applying for grants from the Leadership Institute—the ROCK Grant Program, and the JAG Program. Sean and I made quick use of the ROCK Grant, applying it to our Dinesh D’Souza event held on October 29th. Overall, it was a great weekend, and we were welcomed
home by kicking off Conservative Awareness Week—the most logical way to end a conservative weekend.