Scott Bruun: The Future As Seen In Seaside
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
High School students at the Dorchester Conference
But it was those high school students that set the tone for the fifty-first annual Dorchester Conference which occurred last weekend in Seaside.
“We the People” is a national high school program created by congress in 1987. The program consists of more than 5,000 teams from all fifty states that study and debate the U.S. Constitution in competitive settings. And the students at Dorchester last weekend included four members each from the Lincoln High School and Grant High School constitution teams. Both teams have won the national championship in recent years.
These students demonstrated their constitutional-prowess to the Dorchester delegates, and proved to this observer that our nation’s future is bright. For me, the best part came when one of the delegates tried to stump the students with an arcane question relating to Arizona and Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. The students, unlike the questioner, did not have pocket-constitutions with them. Yet with ease, these best-and-brightest kids from Portland knocked it out of the park, and in the process were able to tie-in John Locke, James Madison, the Articles of Confederation and recent Supreme Court rulings.
It literally brought tears to my eyes.
The conference this year had a spirit of youthful energy and optimism. College Republicans from OSU, U of O and Willamette University, among others, were not only present but persuasive. Speaking of, keep your eyes on a young man named Marshall Kosloff, currently a senior at the University of Oregon. Mark my words, Marshall will one day be governor of our great state.
Like many of us, Marshall and the other students at Dorchester are tired of Oregon’s political stasis. They are tired of having their values and ideas ignored by entrenched, single-party political elites. Elites that have controlled state government now longer than these students have been alive.
They want change, and they know that the only way they will see change, at least in Oregon, is through a powerful and persuasive alternative to the current status quo. Toward that, toward a viable alternative to the Democrats’ decades-long control of Salem, these students want Republicans. They want Republican messaging and outreach that speaks to their issues through their mediums, and they want Republican candidates who can inspire voters and win.
Conference delegates spent a large part of the weekend on that very issue. Delegates articulated the party’s myriad problems, including its need to improve efforts on branding, social media, and messaging. They talked of the need to address the real-world problems of real-world Oregonians. Problems in public education, college tuition, family-wage jobs, poverty and hunger, and the breakdown of many basic government services. It was even said that the GOP should stay away from issues like capital gains tax cuts because they don’t resonate with the vast majority of voters. A comment which made me and about three other freeze-dried supply-siders a little nervous, but point taken.
The comment that stuck with me, however, was when someone pointed out that the party of diversity and inclusion in Oregon was the Republican Party. Why? Because the Republican tent in Oregon includes both Capital gains tax-cutters and folks who think we should move past the Reagan era. It includes pro-lifers and pro-choicers. Traditional-family advocates and same-sex marriage supporters. Internationalists and isolationists. Free-traders and fair-traders. Public-schoolers and home-schoolers.
In fact the Oregon Education Association, our state’s largest public-employee union, even had a booth at the conference. I believe they were very well received. Republicans support public education, after all. In contrast, imagine for a moment the treatment that, say, a pro-life group or NRA booth would receive at a Democratic conference.
Finishing the point, and the conference, some suggested that Republican powers-that-be in Oregon need to work to bring everyone back together under a big tent. That Republican powers-that-be need to ensure that conservatives, moderates, and Republicans of every stripe feel welcome and respected. And that splitting ourselves into separate conferences on the same weekend will not get us a single step closer to good government in Oregon.
Good idea. The only problem is that there are no Republican powers-that-be in Oregon. There hasn’t been in years. Instead, it will be up to everyday people, everyday conservative and moderates of every stripe, reaching out to each other to mend fences, build bridges and build relationships. And if there was one overarching sentiment from the conference, it was this: Let’s get started!
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