Home-schoolers find like politics at small college

Houston Chronicle ^ | 3-8-04 | DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

[truthandlife]

As one of 12 siblings taught at home by their parents in St. Croix Falls, Wis., Abram Olmstead knew he would fit right in at Patrick Henry College, the first college primarily for evangelical Christian home-schoolers. But what really sold him was the school's pipeline into conservative politics.

Of the nearly 100 interns working in the White House this semester, seven are from the roughly 240 students enrolled in the 4-year-old Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. An eighth intern works for the president's re-election campaign. A former Patrick Henry intern now works on the paid staff of the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Over the last four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry College interns in their offices or on their campaigns, according to the school's records.

"I would definitely like to be active in the government of our country and stuff," Olmstead, 19, said as he sat in a Christian coffeehouse near the campus, looking up from a copy of Plato's Republic. "I would love to be able to be a foreign ambassador, and I would really like to move into the Senate later in my career."

The college's knack for political job placement testifies to the increasing influence that Christian home-schooling families are building within the conservative movement.

[truthandlife]

THIS IS AN EXCERPTED ARTICLE

[WorkingClassFilth]

Cool. Another Westpoint for the cultural vanguard.

[Born Conservative]

[condi2008]

Patrick Henry Ping. Check out the Department of Classical Liberal Arts.

[2Jedismom]

Ping!

[condi2008]

Re-pinging rosy, sorry.

[KantianBurke]

"A former Patrick Henry intern now works on the paid staff of the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove."

I wonder how he secures his religious background and beliefs with Rove's big tent moderate morality free politics?

[Timmy]

My overachieving 16-year-old (Junior) has her sights set on PHC. She attended a one week camp there last summer on Constitutional Law, taught by Mike Farris. She won't look at any other college right now.

[Timmy]

"Mike Farris is trying to train young people to get on a very right-wing political agenda," said Nancy Keenan, the education policy director at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, and a former Montana state superintendent of public education.

The number of Patrick Henry interns in the White House "scares me to death," she said. "It tells us a little bit more about the White House than it does about the kids."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Gritty]

... and all this from a timy college of 240 students.

Can you envision an America with hundreds of colleges like this instead of the ones we've got now which are run by the Liberal/Radical Establishment?

[MrB]

Yes, that's pretty tough as the Republican party doesn't represent conservatives anymore - they're just "anti-greater evil."

[ladylib]

What! No "Victorian Lesbian Writers and their Pets"?

[netmilsmom]

I seem to be missing it. Where is this college?

[truthandlife]

Purcellville, VA ( Patrick Henry College (For Christ and for Liberty))

[jtminton]

I read your tagline like this:

"The only people who scare Liberals are the ones who worship a Jew, Ann Coulter"

instead of the way you probably intended:

"The only people who scare Liberals are the ones who worship a Jew" - Ann Coulter

and I was confused. Then I felt dumb.

[Edgewood Pilot]

Thanks for the ping!