Over the past few decades, it has been well documented and commented on that the conservative movement on most college campuses is better funded and more organized than its liberal counterparts. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation outspend and out-plan groups like the Center for American Progress’ Campus Progress on a year after year. Even the president of the Center for American Progress has admitted to wanting to shape his organization more like Young America’s Foundation.

We in the conservative movement pride ourselves on consistently surpassing the competition. YAF spends millions of dollars every year to subsidize student groups that want to bring the “rockstars” of the conservative movement (ie: Ann Coulter, G. Gordon Liddy, Karl Rove, etc.) to their campuses and puts on a weeklong summer conference every year with some of those same voices; Campus Progress does their summer conference in one day with, this year, one big name speaker (Ryan Gosling). After attending both conferences this summer, I was set in thinking: “This is it. We’ve finally got it this year.” And I wasn’t alone in those thoughts.

So, in one of the most vital years to our nation’s future, you’d figure campus organizations like the College Republicans that associate with these umbrella conservative groups like YAF and Heritage, would be on top of things and bringing our A-game, right?

Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth — at least here at the University of Wisconsin. This should be our year. We are the party that has found a candidate in John McCain that stands for progress. The “change” that Barack Obama talks about would simply put the U.S. back into the 1970s. We are talking about reform and issues that matter, and we have a real chance at both the White House and a majority here in Wisconsin. We can fight corruption on both sides of the aisle, undergo economic reform, secure our borders, protect the unborn and take care of ourselves and our loved ones… except we can’t do that here at UW because the right-leaning portion of the student body is seriously lacking excitement and willingness to stand up for those things in which we believe.

Any politician will tell his constituents the election is about them; but how can it be about us when we don’t seem to care?

Let this be a wake-up call to all of the conservative and moderate students out there who don’t want to see the United States turned into an ex-superpower. Unless we want a regressive, pandering politician who can speak well when he reads a teleprompter but has no idea how to run a country, it’s time to get our butts in gear. Sure, making hours of phone calls or dropping candidate literature in the rain may not be the most glamorous things to do, but it’s what we can do and what we need to do. That is why I’m asking you, not as the “chair of the College Republicans” but as a fellow American with a true hope for the future, to get involved. There are lots of opportunities out there, and the few of us can’t do it alone. If the presidential election isn’t your thing, we have plenty of great local candidates who need your help too — Brett Davis, Peter Theron, Alberta Darling, Terry Moulton, just to name a few.

This year is sure to be one of historical change — whether that change is for better or worse depends a great deal on you.

Sara Mikolajczak ([email protected]) is chair of the UW-Madison College Republicans.