Jack Kemp is out, as far as we California College Republicans are concerned. On June 18, we overturned our previous endorsement of Jack Kemp for President in 1996. This reversal of position has been two years in the making.

When Kemp was originally endorsed two years ago, it seemed that he was the unquestionable heir to Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement. However, as time went on, it became painfully clear that Kemp was becoming more moderate in his positions. Kemp has become a conservative who will not fight to cut Leviathan’s government spending (evidenced by his tenure at HUD), who refuses to combat liberal assaults on American culture or acknowledge that there is a problem with illegal immigration, and who endorses an internationalist foreign policy that does not consider the national interests of the United States. In other words. Jack Kemp has become a “Big Government Conservative.” This is confirmed by his own statements identifying himself as a “bleeding-heart conservative” from the “Lane Kirkland wing of the Republican Party.”

The endorsement of Jack Kemp was rapidly becoming an embarrassment to the California College Republicans. Yet the organization’s board of directors did not have the courage to reverse its position. To them, Kemp was still the ever-positive quarterback of the conservatives. However, the tide changed in 1994. Ted Soojian, a principled conservative, was elected chairman of the California College Republicans in April, along with his entire slate of candidates for major office. This paralleled the election of Tom Pauken as chairman of the Texas Republican Party and the nomination in Virginia of Oliver North for United States Senate.

The stage was then set for the board of directors meeting on June 18, 1994, which appropriately took place in Orange County, California. At this meeting, the endorsement of Jack Kemp in 1996 was formally revoked. During this meeting, the board decided that we need to encourage and express thanks to those conservatives who stand for unabashedly conservative positions and who will fight for those positions to the end.

Patrick Buchanan fits this description perfectly. There is perhaps no conservative who has risked as much as Buchanan to stand for conservative principles. He fought for us in 1992, when no other conservative would. Furthermore, 1992 was not a solitary incident. Buchanan has repeatedly fought for us since he entered the conservative movement in his 20’s. Patrick Buchanan also represents something more—a candidate who will fight to bring the American Republic to a new golden age of freedom, federalism, traditional values, and a foreign policy that puts America first. Therefore, a resolution was passed stating that “the California College Republicans stand fully behind Pat Buchanan in his endeavors and encourage him to run for the presidency in 1996 to return the Old Right to its rightful place as a true conservative movement.”

The California College Republicans have fired a shot heard around the Republic. The Republican Party must stand for an agenda of limited government, traditional values, and an American interest-based foreign policy. If the other states spanning this nation fight for the values that conservatives hold dear, then we can do no less than retake the Republican Party and make it once again an establishment that our forefathers would be proud of.