He joins Holly Lyristis, 28, and Elizabeth Leaman, 29, in the party’s RSC delegation.


In the May 16 primary, 31-year-old Bryan Cutler and 33-year-old John Bear each trounced an older incumbent to win the GOP nomination for a state House seat.


Youth is being served in Republican ranks locally and statewide, as younger people fill committee seats, run high-profile campaigns and even bump off powerful GOP lawmakers.


Five young Republicans won legislative nominations in the pay-raise primary of May 16. Two of them were from Lancaster County.


Statewide, Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania, headed by Chris Lilik, was a force in the campaigns that booted Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair County, and Senate Majority Leader David “Chip” Brightbill, R-48th District, who represents part of the county.


The youth movement has been noticeable for the last few years in this county, but the revolution of 2006 brought the growing influence of young people into statewide focus.


A recent survey reported by Campaigns & Elections magazine found that 73 percent of young voters plan to turn out this year.


Most of Lancaster County’s young Republicans share the conservative orientation of YCOP. Yet there are some distinguishing characteristics.


Many bonded in the hothouse of the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2004, when the county GOP went all-out to produce the sixth largest plurality in the nation.


And many of the younger generation tend not to identify themselves with the two factions that have been tugging at the county GOP for the last decade and more: conservative and moderate.


“They don’t seem to make that a litmus test,” said county Republican chairman Dave Dumeyer.


If that trend continues, observers say, the county’s majority party has better odds of overcoming its divisions and maintaining its dominance in the face of growing Democratic organizational skills.


“We need to get away from labeling people,” said Danz, who is hosting a reception next Sunday for all five young candidates, “and start working for the people who are going to do the best job.”


Reagan Republicans




Many young Republicans have at least two things in common.


The first is that their political orientation was shaped by Ronald Reagan, who was president when the youngest of them were born.


The second is the tent.


In 2004, tasked by the national Bush/Cheney campaign to produce 125,152 votes for the president, the county GOP ran a nonstop drive that had volunteers making calls and knocking on doors nearly 24/7, from early spring through fall.


By the end of the campaign, the party erected a tent in the headquarters parking lot to house overflowing phone banks. Young campaign volunteers either worked inside or stood guard over the tent around the clock. Net result: 144,323 votes.


That shared experience forged relationships among the GOP’s next generation that continue today.


“That was kind of the glue that brought people together,” said Scott Martin, 33, who chairs the local campaign of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.


Not all the younger Republicans are conservative, as Jamie Detwiler, 27, a committeeman in Brecknock Township, noted. Many are, thanks to Reagan.


“We all saw what happened during the ‘80s and the early ’90s,” said Cutler, who beat Rep. Gib C. Armstrong in the 100th House District on May 16, “and it was exciting.


“... I’m concerned that the Republican Party has taken a step back from that. We have become in the last 10 years exactly what we rose up against in 1994, with the Contract With America.”


That disappointment, said Chris Lilik, whose Young Conservatives have made waves ever since Pat Toomey nearly upset U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary, is why Republican voters across the state were willing to choose young candidates instead of older incumbents steeped in Harrisburg power politics.


A YCOP political action committee funneled $60,000 worth of radio ads into the Brightbill and Jubelirer races.


“Young conservative leaders stepping up — that’s what the people are hungry for,” Lilik said.


Age-related friction




Youth wasn’t universally embraced during the primary. Danz has a collection of mailers portraying young legislative candidates as wet behind the ears. One infamous piece in Mark Harris’ challenge of Rep. Tom Stevenson in suburban Pittsburgh featured a box of crayons.


Harris, 21, beat Stevenson.


“It’s disrespectful of younger Republicans in general,” said Danz, who is chairman of the county Young Republicans and vice chairman of the state YRs, for ages 18-40.


Danz is bringing the youth movement here June 11, when he hosts Harris, Paul Snatchko, Anthony Tezak, Bear and Cutler at 2 p.m. at his Washington Boro home (to RSVP, call 449-8326).


Snatchko, 29, won the GOP nomination for an open House seat in Washington County. Tezak, 22, a college student, won the GOP endorsement for the seat held by Democratic Rep. Ron Buxton in Dauphin County.


“We are lucky here in Lancaster County to have a county committee that embraces its younger members and young Republicans in general,” Danz said, noting that Dumeyer includes a YR representative at monthly meetings of GOP area chairmen.


Maybe it’s because Dumeyer is a former teacher, said West Hempfield Township committeewoman Nicole Wamsley, 27, that he’s interested in what young Republicans have to say.


“We’re definitely out there trying to attract young Republicans,” Dumeyer said, calling the trend “a kind of generational swing” in the party.


Three of 15 Republican State Committee members elected in the primary — Danz, Lyristis and Leaman — are younger than 30, a not-so-common pattern statewide. Leaman is starting her second term. A growing number of local committee members are young.


At least one area chairman, Jonathan Lutz of Columbia, is in his 30s. Bear was a state committee member and Warwick Area chairman before running for the 97th District seat.


Bear’s campaign against Rep. Roy Baldwin featured younger strategists — for instance, Dan Osborne, John and Elizabeth Leaman, county Prothonotary Randall Wenger and former YR officers Terry and Holly Trego.


Still, there’s a degree of resentment among some older Republicans to the influx of youth. Dumeyer said the traditional view is that state committee slots should go to party veterans, but he thinks it’s important for younger activists to get that experience too.


Cutler heard some skepticism about his age during the campaign.


“I fully expected that to be an issue in the campaign,” he said, “but it was not nearly as much as I expected it to be.”


Cutler said his campaign manager, Ryan Aument, a Quarryville GOP committeeman and Iraq War veteran, has noted that younger people are bringing a different attitude to politics.


“They view it as more of an opportunity to serve,” Cutler said.


Lutz, the Columbia GOP chairman, said he was drawn to politics by the opportunity to make a difference in society: “I think that generally young people today do not participate in or are attuned to politics and the world around them as I feel they should.”


Rising tide?




That could be changing. A Young Voter Strategies poll reported in Campaigns & Elections found that 73 percent of registered voters ages 18-30 are likely to vote this year. Turnout of the 18-24 demographic grew 11 percent between the 2000 and 2004 elections.


Nationally, younger voters skew Democratic, but the pollsters noted that young Republicans tend to be passionately Republican.


For the county GOP, which has seen its voter-registration margin shrink as more Democrats and independents moved to the county and as Democrats improved their organization, an influx of young people not only could help the numbers but could help to heal a festering divide.


Party insiders have feared that the split between social-conservative and moderate, or pragmatic, factions could paralyze the GOP in responding to the growing Democratic presence.


Some younger Republicans think a “unity” realignment of the GOP committee is possible as the generational shift progresses.


One recalled Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.


“I don’t know of any of the young people who are ACTION people or Friends of Better Government people,” Danz said, referring to the most prominent social-conservative and moderate caucuses in the county GOP.


“I have a lot of friends in ACTION as well as on the moderate side,” Bear said.


“I think there are pitfalls in aligning yourself with one or the other,” Wamsley said, “and I don’t think it’s healthy for the party.”


“We’re Republicans first,” Detwiler said, “and at the end of the day, we’re working to move the party forward.”


Martin, a West Earl Township committeeman, said the GOP needs to keep its eye on the ball and seize the opportunity to win over young voters.


“We’re ahead right now on points,” the one-time football player said. “... If we keep scoring, we’re going to keep winning.”

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