One of the hale influences from students on the campus at SCSU this past year was our College Republican group becoming more active and challenging the dominant paradigm of campus life. They challenged views on gun control, the Israeli flag, and the war. They gave us that nice "GOP Safe Space" flyer we have on the left column. We went so far as to recognize its president with an award this spring. We hope they'll come back as full of energy as they were this year.

Turns out they're part of a trend, as reported over the weekend in the Washington Times.

Attendance at the biennial College Republican National Convention doubled during the previous convention, and the number of College Republican chapters nationwide has tripled in the past four years.

Thirty thousand members were recruited in the past few years through an outreach program that departing committee Chairman Scott Stewart said began four years ago on a balmy night, in a "tiny, dingy, dirty office" with three students and a map of the United States. He said it wasn't known how the field representatives would be fed or paid, but that in the first year, the program introduced 220 clubs.

For the 2004 campaign, the committee plans to have 40 to 60 field representatives training clubs in the mechanics of campaigning. Mr. Stewart said it is part of a growing Bush following that is recruiting people to the party and attacking liberal dominance on the nation's campuses.

"College students love the president," said Jake Grassel, the Minnesota state chairman of College Republicans. "They find that his compassionate conservatism is where they need to be."

Minnesota is credited with the most growth in college Republican membership, with more than five times as many students involved in chapters than four years ago. The University of California at Berkeley contingent of College Republicans was recognized yesterday as the chapter of the year. It has 500 members. (Emphasis added.)

Gee, wonder why we're growing the fastest? And wonder why the CR chapter at Berkeley is so large? Could it have anything to do with the leftist bent on these campuses? The whooping it up at a Wellstone memorial, say? Critical Mass pointed out the other day how more students are identifying themselves as conservative. And the fellow we covered who told his students to write letters to government officials and include the words "kill the president" now won't be fired. If you read blogs like ours, you've got other stories as well. For every well-intentioned student who falls for the pap these ideologues serve, there's at least one more who says, "the hell with that" and runs the other way.