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A Conservative Worldview

By Davis Shaver

PSU College of Communications

On January 20 of this year, Sam Settle turned 18.

Barack Obama—the man Sam had spent the better part of the fall campaigning against—was installed as President of the United States on the first day that Sam was eligible to vote.

The irony was frustrating for Sam.

“That was not my best birthday,” says Settle. “I was pretty painfully aware of the fact that throughout the campaign, despite the amount of time I was spending, I wouldn’t even be able to vote in the end.”

He hasn’t let that unfortunate situation dampen his political passion—age is after all only a number. Everyday, Sam shows up to class wearing his GOP hat and at least a few brightly colored pins—the outward signs of a party-line fanboy.

Sam is not blinded by partisan ideology, but he is ultimately loyal to the party. Indeed, his relationship with politics is much more nuanced than it seems.

It’s difficult to figure out how Sam developed his conservative worldview. His parents were only passively engaged in politics and his school—a Philadelphia public one—wasn’t the best breeding ground for political punditry.

His attraction to politics was simple enough at first. He simply liked talking. “I really enjoyed public speaking while growing up,” says Settle. “And I decided that I wanted to be like the men and women I saw speaking ever day.”

His first ideological attraction was to the Republican Party for its fiscal conservatism.

“It just intuitively made sense to me that the government should be spending less of our money,” he says. But since then, Sam has developed his political worldview to an extent that it doesn’t really match the typical Republican outlook.

Sam can describe his worldview in deceivingly simple terms. "The best policy is the one that makes the country strongest economically, militarily, and culturally,” says Settle. In that pithy remark, we glimpse the complexity and tension within his political calculus.

He’s not a Libertarian, a movement he thinks has strayed into “way out there politics.” Rather than categorically eliminating or reducing the size of government, he wants to reduce the size of government by making it work as efficiently as possible.

He’s also not a Bush-brand Republican. The last eight years notwithstanding, the Bush-brand of Republicanism is “Democrat-light” according to Settle.

Settle senses our moment in history-- he knows that the Republican party is fractured and electorally weak. He believes that the Republican Party could be reborn in the mold of Huckabee's ideology and equates the potentiality in that moment to when Lincoln shifted the country towards the right or FDR shifted the country towards the left.

Sam doesn’t hesitate to admit his most improbable aspiration: to be the President of the United States. But unlike many idealistic college politicos, Settle actually has an idea of how he would get there.

Sam spent the first months of his college years campaigning for John McCain. Since then, he has gotten a bit disenchanted with both his candidate and his party (“I don’t really want to insult McCain. Well, OK, I do…”)

His two main extracurricular since then have been College Republics and Young Americans for Freedom.

“I have great admiration for YAF but it has certain problems endemic to organizations like that,” says Sam. “it’s very hard to recruit for an ideology without an overarching organization.”

The problem with that statement is that Sam agrees with the ideology YAF represents, not the ideology College Republicans represents.

That’s where Sam’s individualism and nuance comes in. He wants to be a transformational figure in American politics, but he knows that it’s not as easy as grabbing a diploma and heading to the White House.

He already has his first steps planned. He is considering a run for State Representative Scott Conklin’s seat in the 2012 political season.

“I’d have a decent shot because I’d be a fresh out of college student and University Park is a huge voting park,” explains Sam.

If that doesn’t work out, he says he’d be interested in the appointed Jury Commissioner position.

Sam Settle has positioned himself so that he is both a fan and critic of the Republican Party—a healthy electoral position, to be sure.

In any event, Sam will be well trained for whatever opponent the Democrats can send his way. He has been a lonely Republican in largely Democratic schools for a long time.

He noticed it especially this fall, in his political science seminar with Dr. Michael Berkman.

“I was a little concerned when I came in that it was going to be way far out left,” says Sam. That was far from the case—Sam was actually never even able to figure out his partisan preferences.

“The class was mostly liberal, but not overwhelmingly,” explains Sam. “But not all of the conservative students talked during class, so it often ended up being my response as a Republican against five other responses from Democrats.”

Sam developed a specific identity within that course, an identify which hints that Sam’s future electoral success may depend on the extent to which Sam is able to empathize with other people and see their side of the argument.

“He would say ‘you’re right, but…’” says Eli Glazier, another student in Sam’s political science seminar.

“The unlikelihood of Sam being elected President due to the demographic makeup of our country helps me sleep easy at night.”

Professor Berkman's Political Science Seminar

This fall, Sam took the political science seminar required for all freshman honors political science students. In that class, he served a role as the most vocal Republican, a role he exemplified best in his final push to convince an undecided classmate to vote Republican.

Young Americans for Freedom

Young Americans for Freedom is a conservative student organization that was founded in the 1960s as an anti-communist entity. The Penn State chapter says that it is dedicated to "promoting the principles of liberty and free enterprise among college students." Settle is one of the club's most active members.

Tax Day Tea Party

On Tax Day (April 15), Tax Day tea parties were thrown across the country as part of a grassroots campaign to protest governmental spending. The State College tea party was held in front of the Fraser Street post office. Roughly 300 people attended.

More about Davis Shaver

Davis Shaver is a freshman studying history. He is the founding editor of Onward State, a comprehensive group blog focused on the Penn State community.