“The duty of youth is to challenge corruption” – Kurt Cobain
I am relatively new in the world of politics, and what a world it is. In short, I’m a single father and business owner that got mad about how the local school board does business, and decided to run and help the Gillespie ticket. I lost by 11% in November, but learned a lot, including how the Republican Party views those under 40.
Fast forward about 3 months to January 2018, and Matthew Tederick, Vice Chair of the Sixth District GOP and Cynthia Dunbar’s campaign manager, solidified this point by moving that the convention to determine the 6th District’s nominee be held on May 19th, the same date as Liberty University’s graduation. The College Republicans who helped with my race, and Gillespie’s race, were asked to knock doors, make phone calls, but were told they had the ultimatum of either participating in their or a friend’s graduation, or participate in selecting who will likely become our representative in Congress. A surprising move by someone whose boss allegedly loves Liberty University students.
Here in the Lynchburg area, we have a race for Central Regional Vice Chair between a fellow Young Republican, the position’s incumbent, Craig Storrs, and the never-retiring party participant Wendell Walker. Mr. Walker opines that the Republican Party needs to do more to get the youth involved and somehow believes his campaign, against someone 37 years his junior, is the way to accomplish this. Need I say more? Mr. Storrs will continue to increase outreach to the CRs and YRs, something I believe has been sorely missing and help GOP units with data to win elections, and most importantly, retain control over that data. Mr. Storrs will also continue to making the Party more appealable to the demographics we struggle to reach.
Looking at the Chair race (a seat previously held by Wendell Walker, twice) it’s between another never-retiring participant, Scott Sayre and newcomer Jennifer Brown. The differences are striking. Ms. Brown, I think, would make sure to attend YR & CR meetings, listen to us, embrace our ideas on how to grow the party, and what we can do together to get our message out. I think she would do a better job encouraging those under 40 to step up into leadership positions, and also discuss ways we can work with legislators to think about policies that affect younger generations.
It’s abundantly clear the Republican Party needs a transfusion of young blood, ideas and freedom. For these reasons, and many unspoken, I think the superior candidates for 6th District leadership are Jennifer Brown and Craig Storrs. Both have my endorsement and full support.
