Speaker: Offer a better life

Nineteen-year-old Luke Kilcup, state chairman of the Idaho Federation of College Republicans, was the guest speaker Friday at the Panhandle Pachyderm Club's bi-monthly meeting at Templin's Red Lion Inn.

"Young people like me have been called the 'humanitarian generation,'" he said. "We want people to be cared for. Also, studies have said we're the most fiscally responsible generation since the Great Depression."

He called the Republican party the "original human rights party" and said that Republicans needed to show younger generations what liberals are doing to the economy.

"The majority of college students don't like fiscal waste," he said. "Obama is passing laws that are destroying my generation's future."

The University of Idaho student has been involved in Republican politics for several years. He interned with Sen. James Risch and Rep. Raul Labrador and is majoring in pre-law with an emphasis in economics.

He maintained that young people will work for a cause they feel they can get behind and that it's difficult for them to support a fragmented cause.

"The Republican party is seen as a divided party and that scares young people," he said.

Audience member and former Coeur d'Alene School District trustee Jim Hightower asked Kilcup what he thinks it will take to bring more young people into the party.

"We lose them over social issues - issues like gay marriage and abortion," Kilcup said. "We need to stop focusing on social issues and talk more about fiscal issues. We're going to win their vote with our fiscal policies.

"We also need to keep involvement in the party a fun thing, and to show people they can make a change through activism.

"My own personal goal is to offer people a better life than my own and to be able to make more decisions that benefit the most people possible."