The Oswego State College Democrats club has a new lease on life. Club President Connor Breese said he wants to make the club an active, engaged part of local politics and make it a tool for both its members and local Democratic candidates.
The club had a bit of a rocky start. It was re-chartered in 2016, around the same time as the presidential election. A result of that, Breese said, was that there was an increase of political weariness in the membership and not a ton of will to keep the club active.
“College Dems as a project was delayed all 2016, into 2017, and it was really only last semester that me and a friend of mine got it really started up,” Breese said.
Another issue was, according to interim club secretary Omar van Reenen, the club had no budget when it re-started. That severely limited the outreach the club could do, as it had no money for materials to give out, or anything to use during a tabling campaign. Alongside that, van Reenen said that there is an assumption that Oswego State is a fairly liberal school.
“Because there is that perceived notion that this is a majority liberal campus, there isn’t a need for a membership for people that are like-minded… that’s probably one of the reasons that it died down,” van Reenen said.
Now, under Breese’s leadership, the College Democrats began actively representing Oswego State students in local Democratic campaigns. Members are currently working weekly with the Dana Balter campaign for the House of Representatives and the Gail Tosh campaign for state Assembly.
Breese said that his goal is to make the club different in its mission from the College Democrats of the past. He said how the club has historically operated similarly to the political science club or the history club, focusing on discussion and debate rather than action.
“What we wanted to do with the College Dems to make it more vital, to make it more vibrant, to make it more useful for the Democratic Party locally and statewide, was to take what used to be a club about talking about issues and turn it into a club that actually does things,” Breese said.
Members of the club are currently phone-banking and canvassing for local Democratic candidates and, once this election cycle ends, will begin helping potential Democrat candidates begin their campaigns for the local 2019 elections, which include the election for mayor of Oswego. Breese said that Oswego was placed in such a position that the College Democrats will have the opportunity to work with local candidates nearly all the time.
The club is open to many different majors. Alexander Erhenberg, a freshman member of the club, is an adolescent education major with a focus in social studies, and another freshman member, Chelsea Gomez, is a biochemistry major.
“I personally was not a hugely political person, but this has got me more involved, and I really enjoy it,” Gomez said.
As for the future of the club, Erhenberg said that the club plans to involve itself more with the campus as the election season winds down.
“We’re mostly off-campus at the moment, but we’re working on transferring that energy that we’ve been spending offcampus back to the campus,” Erhenberg said.
Photo provided by Connor Breese
