By Jen Nelson

Although the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries have set the public eye on the Democratic party, North-eastern’s College Repub-licans (NUCR) are also campaigning. Even though President George W. Bush is running unopposed on the Repub-lican ticket, several members of NUCR traveled to New Hampshire over the weekend to “create some visibility and to make a presence,” said David Whelpley, NUCR’s advisor. “We wanted to promote the [Republican] party and promote our candidate of choice,” said Annabelle Guerra, a junior political science major and executive board member of NUCR. “We go and participate as much as possible.”

NUCR, which has experienced periods of inactivity in the past, is hoping to revitalize the group with the upcoming campaign.

“We had a very active group a couple of years ago,” Whelpley said. Although the group has since experienced a lull, Whelpley said “a few new members have made an effort to revitalize the group.”

The group had 125 members as of last year, Guerra said. She said, in the past, recruiting new members has been mostly through “word of mouth,” but NUCR has been putting effort into actively pursuing new members.

New plans for “membership advocacy” will include handing out flyers and holding meetings for interested students, “especially new freshmen,” Guerra said.

NUCR looks forward to campaigning more for Bush as election time nears.

“Hopefully we’ll have more plans as the field narrows after the Democratic National Convention this summer,” Whelpley said.

The group is looking to convince voters to keep the Republican president in office for the next four years.

“We are hoping for [Bush] to win reelection,” Guerra said. “Being proud young Republicans as we are, we’re going to try our hardest to get the voice out. We’re going to keep supporting our candidate until Nov. 2004.”