College campuses across the nation became battlegrounds for politically minded students of various party allegiances during the feverish 2008 elections.
Brigham Young University was not unique in that regard, but there, at least, the battle was more one-sided. The college is among the most conservative in the nation. But recent events such as the war in Iraq, domestic wiretapping and threats to abortion rights have made life a lot more interesting for the stalwart few of the BYU chapter of the College Democrats.
Recently the club has experienced a tremendous boost in membership and is finding it difficult to adjust.
“Last year there were only five of us, but back in September somebody else started showing up to meetings, so that’s encouraging, I guess,” said the club’s president, who asked, for security purposes, that his name not be released. “We can’t do much even with six people, so we mainly sit around, chat, and write letters to the editor.”
Writing letters to the editor is a major pastime of all college political organizations, and there was a minor scandal last year when a College Democrats member discovered hundreds of their letters to the editor unopened in the trash bin behind the offices of The Daily Universe, BYU’s student paper. After a heated confrontation with the editor in chief, a compromise was reached in which the letters would still be ignored and disposed of, but would be placed in the proper recycling receptacle instead.
“That was a big win for us,” he said. “Conservation is a key plank in our platform and to have it enforced at that level showed us just how powerful activism can be.”
Life has not always been so rosy for the Dems, however. Last year, during a five-man protest of the Iraq war along a major campus thoroughfare, a gang of returned missionaries heckled the group, riding around them on mountain bikes and kicking at them with their dress shoes.
Budgeting has also been an issue for the group. The BYU student association grants money to groups based on membership, and last year the College Democrats received a check for $10 to cover all of their operations for the 2006-2007 school year. The Democrats keep a small lockbox for their money and claim to have saved in excess of $200 since the early 1970s.
The club treasurer estimates that at the present rate of saving, the club will be able to deploy a megaphone for the 2012 presidential election.
“It will be historic,” the club president said. “We’ve never been able to make use of that kind of firepower, not since Hiram’s days.”
The president was referring to Hiram Jones, a disgruntled history major from rural southern Utah who spent his teenage years rebelling against his parents by sneaking out Marxist literature from the local library and reading it after dark by candlelight.
Hiram founded the BYU College Democrats when he arrived on campus as a freshman in 1964. His perseverance in the face of adversity8212;he was the only member of the College Democrats from 1964 to 19688212;has made him a role model for today’s generation of BYU liberals.
“Jones is everybody’s hero,” said the club’s treasurer, who also asked not to be identified. “There’s a story about him that says he held a one-man protest rally against the war in Vietnam, doing the “What do we want?’ and “When do we want it?’ chants for six hours before his lungs gave out.”
Since those heady times, the Democrats have called for Nixon’s resignation, campaigned against the Reagan defense buildup and protested the first and second Gulf Wars. The club has had a dedicated scrapbooker since membership increased to two members in the early ’80s, and the lace-adorned photo albums show painted faces, waving flags and stenciled signs dealing with a wide variety of causes from the ’60s to the present.
The Democrats said they are keen to have a speaker on campus at least once during 2008, but all contacts with the leading Democratic candidates have failed to turn up anything.
The only time the BYU College Democrats have succeeded in getting a candidate to speak on campus was with Walter Mondale during the 1984 presidential election. Mondale was invited to speak at the University of Utah but was given BYU’s address in Provo instead by a devious Democrat. The confused candidate arrived, realized where he was, became irate and left. But, according to legend, he did tell the two members of the College Democrats waiting for him, “Go screw yourselves.”
According to the club president and the scrapbook entry on the event, “He still came to BYU and spoke. He may have not given a speech, but he came to campus and said words. Small victories, y’know?” And according to the club president, those small victories are adding up to something big.
“2008 is going to be a decisive year, I can feel it,” he said. “We’ve been gathering momentum for a long time now and sooner or later we will hit the mainstream. I feel like our time has come.”
Editor’s Note8212;The above article is a satire and should in no way be taken seriously.