Generation R

By David Faith, sd44gop.com

If you checked out the Star Tribune’s website this weekend you probably noticed two things. One, in what has to amount to the least surprising development of the entire Presidential campaign, the Star Tribune editorial board endorsed Barack Obama. Two, and far more interesting, was an article about how young people coming of age during the Obama Presidency are becoming more and more fiscally conservative. Indeed, Republican identification among young voters is the highest it has been in many years.

This corresponds exactly with my anecdotal observations over this election season. One of the most exciting things about this year’s election is the number of young people getting involved in helping out our Republican candidates. If you’ve been coming out to meet the candidates in Senate District 44, to fundraisers, to parades, and to other volunteer events of all kinds, you’ve met a new generation of Republican activists that are changing the political calculus of the State of Minnesota.

And it’s no wonder. Our Republican candidates are the only ones in the room speaking to young people like adults and addressing the fiscal mess they’re going to inherit. A central theme of the campaigns of SD44 State Senate candidate David Gaither, and our State House candidates Sarah Anderson and Mark Stefan, is that the current generation’s spending binge has to come to end if we’re going to give the next generation a fair shake at the same opportunities we enjoyed.

Young people are among the reasons that in addition to returning Republican majorities to the State Legislature, we have a real shot of helping to elect a Republican President of the United States. The latest Rasmussen polls show Mitt Romney drawing to within 5% of Barack Obama in Minnesota, the closest we’ve seen the race in the entire election season. What’s more, the momentum is clearly in Romney’s favor, having improved an astonishing 5% just since October 18.

At our recent SD44 gala we had the tremendous pleasure of welcoming former Senator Rudy Boschwitz to make the keynote address. Among his observations was the fact that Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984 without once blaming Jimmy Carter for the fiscal mess Reagan inherited. The Senator noted, with wry humor, that he was embarrassed to say what the 50th state had been. It was Minnesota. We have an historic opportunity to turn Minnesota around for Republicans with a message of limited government and personal liberty that resonates especially with the young. We will not waste that opportunity. We’re going to win this for our candidates, for our children, and for ourselves.

David Faith is Vice Chair at Large of the SD44 Republicans. This post originally appeared on sd44gop.com.