The young and the restless

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 14, 1998 | by Eli Lehrer

Those who have worked with Robinson describe him as hardworking and self-effacing. "I had no idea he made that much money, but he's well worth it," says Morgan Knoll, who worked for the foundation as a summer intern. "He would sit in staff meetings signing thank-you notes himself. When we had a major conservative speaker visit at a conference, he would always sit somewhere in the back so that more students could get close to the speaker."

Looking toward the future, Robinson says that the foundation wants to focus on the ranch. At the moment, foundation executives are negotiating to purchase a conference center near the ranch and plan to begin a West Coast conference series called the Ronald Reagan Leadership program sometime in the next year or two. The program, which will begin when the foundation completes its purchase of the conference facility, will be similar to its regional conferences but will emphasize the communication skills and traditional values that the foundation believes Reagan embodied.

When it begins, the leadership program will include visits to the ranch house, which the foundation plans to keep, more or less, the same as it was when Reagan vacationed there while president. A four-person West Coast office near the ranch was opened this spring. Foundation staff members speak about the ranch in almost spiritual tones. "If you have one conservative bone in your body, it's a place you must visit" says Robinson.

The purchase of the ranch seems a natural act for the foundation, whose leaders were at the forefront of conservative efforts to support Reagan for president. Today, its modest Herndon, Va., offices seem almost like a shrine to the idealized values and character of the 40th president. There is a large, flattering color photo of Reagan in the foyer, and short notes he wrote to the foundation and its officers are displayed in special frames.

While its purchase of the ranch attracted short-term attention, the foundation consistently has been visible as it has brought speakers to college campuses. "Right now, on all-too many campuses, students are only getting one side," Robinson tells Insight. "We need to make sure that they get a conservative viewpoint, too."

The speakers the foundation hosts on the campuses range from rapmusic-promoter-turned-conservative-political-activist Reginald Jones to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Reagan intimate and attorney general Edwin Meese. Local student groups usually raise at least part of the cost for touring these speakers.

Ying Ma, who worked closely with the Young America's Foundation while a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., says the foundation played a crucial role in bringing a conservative voice to a traditionally leftist campus. "There are a lot of young people who just don't know anything about speakers, and they provided a place that we could call to get help," she explains. "It helps to energize a lot of moderately conservative people."

Even the foundation's political adversaries admit that its programs are effective. "They've been very good at training a small portion of students to have a significant effect," says Bill Kapowski, executive director of the Center for Campus Organizing, a left-liberal educational group in Cambridge, Mass. "Our take on them is that they make very strategic use of their money."