For Election Day, the College Republicans of Syracuse University will be eyeing the 25th Congressional race to see some results of their labor.
“Every weekend beginning in September we’ve either done precinct-walking or call banks. This weekend, we are walking on Saturday, we’re walking on Sunday, we’re walking on Monday. Some of us will be down at headquarters all day Tuesday,” said Nick Johnson, president of SU’s College Republicans. Their candidate is Republican Dale Sweetland.
Sweetland is running against Democrat Dan Maffei and Green Populist candidate Howie Hawkins. All three men are vying for the seat retiring Republican Jim Walsh held for 20 years. The 25th Congressional District includes all of Onondaga and Wayne Counties, the northern part of Cayuga County, and the towns of Webster, Penfield and Irondequoit in Monroe County. The election is Nov. 4.
The group’s work with the Sweetland campaign is one of the reasons it will be spending election night at the county Republican party. The other reason is that it’s tradition. Because the group tends to work on local Republican campaigns, it’s always welcome, Johnson said.
“It’s all the bigwigs from Republicans in the county, fans, supporters, cocktails, snack food, balloons,” he said. This year the party is being held at the Double Tree hotel in East Syracuse. The event starts at 8:30 p.m.
Although the group tends to focus on local races, this year’s election made its work even more important, Johnson said. The young Republicans are not expecting their presidential candidate, John McCain, to carry the state.
“Obviously McCain will not win New York anyway and if he does it would not be by a landslide. So we decided to focus on a local candidate in the Congressional race, which is obviously much closer,” Johnson said. To help, Johnson changed his voting registration to Syracuse from his home-state of California.
Caitlyn Schneeweiss is the secretary of College Republicans. She said she wants to go into politics after college, so working on the Sweetland campaign has been good on-the-job training for her. But she portrays her work for the local campaign in a broader context, beyond SU.
“We are here for four years of our lives,” she said. “So the decisions the elected officials make are going to have a direct effect on us for four years, possibly longer.”
(Torie Wells is a junior broadcast journalism major.)
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