CR Nation

Well, I must apologize for the unnatural silence recently. There is really no excuse beyond a lack of especially notable CR activity during the summer months. That pattern has been broken, however, by the Wisconsin-Iowa Leadership Summit held at the Maquoketa State Park in Iowa last weekend. It was too far for me to drive, (don’t think folks outside the Midwest were invited anyway), but several tidbits have filtered in to us that provide a nice summary.

State chairs Dane (Iowa) and Lora Rae (Wisconsin) led their respective states in planning and hosting the campout/training that began Friday afternoon with the early arrival of Zach Howell and continued through a full day’s activities Saturday to Sunday morning’s gradual departure of the other attending states (including Jon Ratliff with a crew from Missouri and Lauren Fakes with an Indiana contingent). The training session lasted most of the day Saturday and included talks from Zach, Jeremy Hagen, former Iowa state chair Greg Baker, Dane, Lora and others, as well as some general discussion and Q and A time.

High points:

Food and drink was abundant. All took full advantage of the fact. All were dubbed great Americans in the spirit of conservative fellowship. This may or may not explain the midnight group who went out for a jog after the festivities Friday night, led by an Indiana gentleman said to be training for a marathon.

Saturday’s events were crowned with afternoon cave explorations in which Iowa held their own but Missouri got really dirty. (Wisconsin and Indiana exercised discretion and served more as support staff.) Mr. Hagen seemed to have some experience in spelunking and was outfitted to the teeth. The honorable national chair came less prepared but was game for most of the trek. All the appropriate Boy Scout skills were on full display around the fires both evenings, and I understand the ladies were appropriately impressed.

For more details, feel free to consult Dane’s more official report here. Kudos to these states for hosting a uniquely creative, not to mention adventurous, event. Might be a little rough for my taste, but you can’t say those Midwesterners aren’t tough!

According to Greg Baker, chairman of the University of Iowa College Republicans, Rudy Giuliani may be winning Iowa City. Quite surprising, since Giuilaini is battling Fred Thompson for third-place statewide.

As I noted in a previous post, Ben Johnson, Chair of the IA College Republicans, recently did an interview with the Iowa Independent. In the below segment, Mr. Johnson discusses the need to support the troops and ways to do so.

To speak candidly and honestly, one of the cooler things about being able to blog is that when I come across a cool event, idea, or tip, I can pass it along to a wide group of College Republicans across our country. I didn’t always have that capability.

I don’t mean to imply that Mr. Johnson’s ideas regarding supporting the troops are revolutionary, but they are cool and effective ideas – no matter how many chapters replicate them.

Events such as the troop grill out, Remember 9-11, and yellow ribbon days, are cool and effective because they are unifying.

Unifying events take individual members and make a group out of them while spreading a positive pro-Republican message on campus. That is what conservativism on campus is all about.