It's Not Easy being Red in a Blue State

ST. MARY'S CITY --- Zach Messitte, director for the Center for the Study of Democracy, is fond of telling students at St. Mary’s College of Maryland that they are on a blue island, in a red county, in a blue state, in a red country.

However, his analogy leaves out one important factor—the red islanders.

Elizabeth Lewis, president of the College Republicans, is one of those red islanders. And being a red islander on a blue island isn’t always so easy, she says.

“It’s a skewed view of the world. I feel like we live in a hole and nothing is really as it is,” Lewis said.

Lewis, a junior from Elkton, Md., said that she started out in politics campaigning for Democrats with her aunt. However, her parents changed parties while President Bill Clinton was in office.

As her parent’s ideology shifted to the right so did Lewis’s.     

She said adjusting to life surrounded by liberals was at first tough, but that as she is dealing with it, if she’s not entirely comfortable with the situation.

“I’m always viewed as the Republican and it gets old. I’m tired of being on the defensive,” Lewis said.

Lewis said that as a conservative on campus she has learned to pick her fights, especially when those fights happen to be with faculty.

During one class a professor made the comment that all Republicans want assault weapons for 6-year-olds. After the comment Lewis said that she just bit her tongue.

She said that she often knows where the professors are coming from and so she has learned what to expect.

“Some professors are very…you know where they are coming from,” Lewis said.

But the worst day on campus for her came on Nov. 3, 2004. A day she should have been celebrating due to the outcome of last year’s elections.

Lewis said the build up to the elections last year was fun. She said that many people were putting up stickers for their preferred political candidates. Even the debate between the college Democrats and Republicans was “civil,” Lewis said as if she was still surprised by the debate’s tone.

But the day after the election all the fun had been drained from campus politics. She described the general attitude among the campus’s liberal majority as “affected.”

“It wasn’t fun for me to be here,” Lewis said.       

College campuses in the U.S. have the reputation of being bastions for liberal ideology. According to data from a survey conducted by the college in 2004 supports that St. Mary’s isn’t much different.

According to the data, 61 percent of the student body planned on voting for Sen. John Kerry in the past election. Only 20 percent said that they planned to vote for President George W. Bush.

Maybe even a better indicator of the liberal politics at the school is the 3 percent who said they planned on voting for Ralph Nader.

Despite the apparent liberal bent on campus Lewis said the College Republicans will continue to hold events like National Rifle Association day. She said she will continue to try to change conceptions about Republicans on campus.