Born to be mild

Rhode Island's college Republicans defy the stereotype of hard-core Party animals

by Mark Bazer

It's always great fun to hear about young Republicans loosening their neckties, unbuttoning their collars, and getting down, dirty -- and downright drunk. In an article in the January 1, 1996 issue of the Nation, Eric Alterman quotes a frequenter of Republican parties, "You haven't lived until you've seen a line of college Republicans dance the electric slide."

In the March 31, 1997 New Republic, Stephen Glass's more scathing account of the College Republicans, a national group, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) reveals that many young conservatives are too busy partying to take their Party seriously. Many of them at the conference, Glass observed, skipped the speeches to drink and smoke marijuana in their hotel rooms, getting so soused that they spilled their drinks and their most idiotic thoughts. "Conservatives -- we're like a guy who has to pee lost in the desert, searching for a tree," one Iowa College Republican told him.

But the portrait Glass paints is ultimately more disturbing than funny. He tells of one slimy College Republican who picked up an overweight and unattractive woman at a bar, got her drunk, and brought her home. Then, the second she took off her bra, he had all of his friends jump out from behind the bed to take pictures. For the College Republicans Glass met, the chance to pull this type of shenanigan was the primary draw to the convention. He concludes that young Republicans in '97 are "like a lost generation."

The leaders of Republican college students in Rhode Island, however, are not the cruel, drunken morons described above. This is not to say that the state's young conservatives aren't slightly misguided, naive, and sometimes even selfish. It is also not to say that some of these guys don't drink or party like most college kids do from time to time. But disillusioned and directionless Rhode Island's young Republicans are not.

After all, what would be the point of being a Republican in a Democratically-controlled state such as Rhode Island (and in college of all places) if you weren't actually committed to your ideas? Being a Republican isn't exactly a normal matter of course here. In fact, most of the college Republicans I talked to didn't even grow up with conservative parents.

Instead, these Rhode Island Republicans have chosen their own beliefs based on a mix of political analysis, fears for their future, and a blind faith in the words of conservative elder party leaders. And in a state where few come to the same political conclusions as they do, a few college Republican leaders are already on their way to becoming party leaders here.

Take the plain-faced, plain-clothed, and earnest Ed Lopez. At 23, he is the chairman and founder of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly. Only a junior at the University of Rhode Island, he has already gathered a team to help him run for the state Senate position in Cranston in 1998 or in Providence in 2000.

He is also an honors political science/finance double major, and a devout Mormon who has completed a two-year mission in the Dominican Republic. Next month, Lopez also should have a real estate license. All this guy has is direction.

"I don't have many friends my own age," he admits. "I feel that in some ways I have been missing out on my youth -- mostly due to the politics -- but it's worth it." As for fun, well, he watches The X-Files at his quiet Cranston home, where he lives with his parents.

In some ways, it's hard to tell where Lopez got his political ambition. Lopez 's mother isn't very politically-minded and "probably votes Democrat," he says, while his father, a college professor and an author of Spanish literature, stays away from politics altogether. Lopez's parents are also Catholics, not Mormons -- Lopez converted to the Church of Latter Day Saints at 18 while a freshman at the University of Utah.

Already involved with the College Republicans as a freshman, Lopez says that Mormonism's strict moral code only reinforced his conservatism. He truly believes that the choices he has made in both politics and religion are helping him improve the world. Possibly the rarest breed of all, Lopez is genuine, unbelievably selfless, and a Republican.

Californian Luc Morris is another deep thinker. A slightly awkward 19-year-old sophomore at Brown, he is studying (often on weekend nights) to become a doctor. But like his studies, he takes politics very seriously and refers to himself as a "principled Republican."

"I'm a Republican mostly because the Republican Party does a better job at protecting individual rights and opposing governmental power than the Democratic Party." Usually, such an opinion would hardly get noticed at Brown, a bastion of liberalism where other points of view often get swallowed up by the majority. But as secretary of the school's chapter of the College Republicans, Morris has raised the club's profile. He constantly writes letters to the school paper (his most recent defended anti-affirmative action author Dinesh D'Souza's right to speak on campus), and he has spearheaded a joint campaign with, of all groups, the American Civil Liberties Union to put an end to the administration's speech code, which he feels censors students.

Unlike Lopez, Morris doesn't seem primarily interested in helping people. As far as he is concerned, freedom is the bottom and only line. And to hear Morris explain his college experiences, Brown has only reinforced his fear of people infringing on his rights as an individual. Although he says he believes most Brown students are not intolerant, he harps on the few who are.

"[As freshmen], we have a week-long orientation program. We discuss racism, sexism; we discuss homophobia, heterosexism, all these different `isms' that they've decided are important," he explains. "But these discussions really aren't discussions. They're discussions led by counselors, who are upperclassmen with a certain agenda -- the university agenda. And students are molded to match that impression. Any kind of dissent is stifled."

Tim Costa is also big on individual rights. But his reasons seem to be driven first out of fear for his future. The intellectual reasoning comes later. A sophomore at Catholic University in Washington, DC, Costa, a 19-year-old Providence native, is the treasurer of the College Republicans at his school, and he works for the DC Republican Committee and serves from afar as the Rhode Island chair of the Young Republicans.

Quick-talking and brash, Costa is the Rush Limbaugh of the bunch. When you ask him why he's against the Democrats, the zingers come flying. "Take the Department of Education," he tells me over the phone from DC. "It came around in the late 1970s because Jimmy Carter wanted to pay off the teachers union." To be fair, Costa can be equally harsh about the military. "Now, I support defense, but even that -- $200 toilet seats. A waste of money is a waste of money."

His money, that is. Peel away the sarcastic layers and you've got a guy who is mainly concerned about his economic future. "None of my friends like going to work and getting their paycheck and finding 30 to 40 percent of it going to some welfare program that they don't even support," he says. "Nobody I know my age believes Social Security is going to be around [when we're due to collect]."

And indeed, Costa's concerns are legitimate. Chances are Social Security won't be around when he's older. What's more, the economy may be strong now, but finding a good job is harder than ever. Politics, as with his non-conservative father, are Costa's passion. But unlike his father, Costa is growing up in an age of less certainty. And that has him looking out for numero uno.

For all college Republicans, having their beliefs taken seriously by adult Republicans in Rhode Island only reinforces their political commitment. "The state party has really recognized us as a very useful and viable organization that they can use and respect at the same time," says Mark Ramia, a senior at Providence College and the state chairman of the College Republicans. "That's really important to me."

Part of the reason the young Republicans in the New Republic story are so disillusioned is a lack of feeling like they belong to the party. Glass quotes a College Republican from North Carolina, "Now there is no Reagan, no one to lead us. So there's a cynicism and a depression that has set in." But for Rhode Island's Republican Party -- a party without much of a past and not too impressive a future -- the last thing they can afford to be is disconnected from conservative youth.

In fact, at times they've gone too far. Two years ago the Providence Ward 8 Republican Committee sponsored a Little League team. In an issue of the Providence Republican newsletter, Dave Talan, editor and now acting chairman of the party's City Committee, wrote, "15 boys & girls age 6 to 8 . . . proudly wore T-shirts identifying them as members of the `8th Ward Republicans' team this spring."

Talan also devotes considerable room in his monthly newsletter to college Republicans. With the exception of Morris (Brown is a "world of its own," says Talan), he keeps in close contact with Providence's leading young Republicans. And he's already excited about the prospect of running Lopez and Costa for public office.

"They're energetic enough and aggressive enough," says Talan. "In a small state like Rhode Island with small electoral districts, if you're not too shy about going door to door and ringing strangers' doorbells and making a good impression, absolutely, you can win."

Winning a public election. It is something Talan has never done in a lifetime of political involvement. And now, like a father who never accomplished much in his own life and is banking on his "sons" to give his life's work purpose, he speaks of college Republicans with a mixture of pride and incredulity at their accomplishments.

Tim Costa is "brilliant," according to Talan. Ed Lopez is also "brilliant." Mark Ramia will have to settle for just being "smart." Talan recalls getting to know Costa as a member of the teenage Republicans. "He actually went to adults who he thought were potential Republican candidates -- ones he didn't know that well -- and asked them about being candidates. Can you imagine a 15-year-old kid having the balls to do something like that?"

Costa downplays his role: "The main purpose I see for young people is to be volunteers for campaigns. If I do nothing else but recruit volunteers for [Governor Lincoln] Almond and [Lieutenant Governor Bernard] Jackvony and for whoever else is running, I'll be happy."

But as far as Talan is concerned, "whoever else is running" may soon be Costa himself. "I'd say as soon as he graduates from college and comes back here when he's 20 or 21, we'll be recruiting him to run for the state legislature or City Council right away."

The prospect of Lopez running for office brings Talan a joy similar to how he felt during black state Representative Mary Ross's campaign. "Obviously, because he's Hispanic, he gets attention beyond what he would get even for being a brilliant, young man," says Talan. "And he'll make good use of it."

With Hispanics the fastest growing minority in the state, Talan should thank his lucky stars that he's got Lopez on his side. And sometime in the not-so-distant future, the Democrat Party is really going to lament the fact that Lopez isn't on theirs. When the Dems see some of the issues he's campaigning on -- cleaning up the environment, helping minorities establish businesses, providing job-training programs for welfare recipients, and perhaps even building statewide bike paths -- they'll scratch their heads with puzzlement as to why he's not.

But Lopez considers himself a staunch Republican, and he buys their rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. Morris, Costa, and Ramia all mimic the lines of their conservative elders as well. According to these guys, Republicans value families more than the Democrats do; tax cuts and decreased funding for social programs are what's best for both rich and poor; and Ronald Reagan is a god.

Never mind the millions of poor people, minorities, homosexuals, and women for whom the Reagan era was a nightmare. How could these kids know anything about that? In the '80s, after all, they were children watching Nickelodeon, not the evening news. Today, they can read and repeat Reagan's words, but sadly, they don't seem to understand the consequences of his actions.

Luc Morris, for instance, would like Americans to have the legal right to discriminate against others on the basis of race or gender. "I don't know if America is ready for the repeal of the discrimination laws, but purely in principle, I think they're wrong," he argues. "If a business owner wants to exclude blacks from his store, I would say that he ought to be able to do that because it's his store. If he doesn't want to take their money, it's his right."

In other words, the government (elected by a majority of Americans) should not have the right to uphold the equality of all its citizens. But has Morris ever considered what would happen if the phone company decided not to service black people? In an ideal society, this would never happen. But in an ideal society, everyone also would be well-fed, treated equally, and have equal opportunity. Obviously, we don't live in such a society. So to improve society -- and it's not clear Morris understands this -- we have government.

What's so weird about a guy like Ed Lopez is that he's getting into government for idealistic reasons. He thinks government intervention is necessary when it comes to programs he deems worthy. "Politics is how much you care about people," he says. "It boils down to creating sound legislation. If it's something that's really going to help people and it's not a waste of money and you're not encouraging drug use or something else, then I think you should definitely support those kinds of programs."

He goes on to explain, "If there's a lot of Hispanics in my district and I feel the need for them to learn English, then I'm going to support those programs. That's just the way it is. A congressman from South Dakota, he's probably not going to care much about bilingual education. In the end, that's democracy working."

Lopez's conservative social values (he's anti-choice, anti-pre-marital sex for himself, and thinks homosexuality is not a "correct lifestyle") fit in quite well with many Republicans. But he also sees his party as the true champion of minorities and the environment.

Tim Costa and Mark Ramia are also socially conservative. While neither claims to discriminate against homosexuals, Ramia definitely gets uneasy around the subject and Costa doesn't believe gays and lesbians should be able to marry or adopt children. But like Lopez, they're not full of hate. In fact, they're quite likable people, respectable citizens and hard workers. They bear no resemblance to their fellow college Republicans described by Glass.

Still, neither is quite as idealistic as Lopez. Costa, for instance, dismisses the question of whether his views are selfish with a quote. "Whether it's selfish or not, it's still my money," he says. "I think Ronald Reagan said, and this is a paraphrase, `Government's there to protect us from someone else, and we shouldn't want, nor can we afford, a government to protect us from ourselves."

And that's pretty much all of these guys' general attitude -- even though a "You do what you want and let me do what I want" attitude won't help Lopez accomplish all his goals. It won't create the ideal society Morris would like to see either. And if any of them are ever down and out, jobless, or homeless, it's doubtful their fellow Reaganites will be there to help them get back on their feet.