Ottawa Citizen: Be blue at your school

[tuvor]

It hasn't always been cool for university students to join the campus Conservative club. But the Tories are trying to change that with a cheeky new ad campaign.

Once considered redoubts for political pariahs, Conservative campus clubs are enjoying a resurgence at Canadian universities and colleges, emboldened by a cheeky ad campaign that encourages students to "freak out their profs" and join the federal party.

Campus-club presidents say membership has increased since Prime Minister Stephen Harper took office nearly two years ago. The Conservatives' ascent to power in Ottawa, they say, has had a multiplier effect on campus, enabling clubs to attract centre-leaning students who had not previously identified as conservatives.

The surge is evident at Queen's University, a blue-chip school in Kingston. Despite the university's strong Tory roots, membership in the campus club sank to the low double digits at the start of the decade, when the country's two main conservative parties were still divided.

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http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=01615370-58c1-4bd0-a2e7-41dcaeddf43a&k=10516