by Carla Bream
Frequent Fox News commentator and popular college campus speaker Kate Obenshain was the speaker at a luncheon in Roanoke this past week. The audience, mostly a group of like-minded conservatives, hung on her every word and peppered her with questions at the end.
She thanked people for taking the day off of work to come listen to her, and Obenshain joked she was especially glad that some of her nearby family, who represent the “Hokie side,” came to hear the “UVA girl” give her spin on politics
Obenshain is a Virginia native who lives in Winchester with her four children. Her brother Mark Obenshain represents the 26th district as a state senator. She is vice president of the Young America’s Foundation and is involved with the Reagan Ranch, a group that seeks to inspire young conservative leaders.
She spoke of numerous Fox News experiences when she faced “some of the most liberal people I have ever met.” When asked how she handles being attacked for her conservative views, she said that she learned at an early age how to “talk politics” and respect other viewpoints even when it involved a little bit of “yelling and crying.” “Speaking of conservatives,” she said, “whenever I am on Geraldo Rivera’s show, I feel like he is going to leap across the table and strangle me whenever I start speaking.”
Obenshain observed that now is the time for passion and conviction in politics. She encountered a man at a rally recently who kept yelling “Obama is a communist.” She approached him afterward and told him that he was going about it the wrong way. She told him to do his research and if he believed what he was saying, to offer proof. “Don’t just yell things because people won’t pay attention to you. Be like Ronald Reagan, he never held back, he said exactly what he believed, but he did it with a smile on his face.”
She said that the current administration has spent seven trillion dollars in just two years in office. “That pace of spending is unprecedented and cannot be sustained.” She agrees with John Boehner when he says when he says he wants to tie spending in with budget cuts. She says the current proposed “miles tax” is the wrong way to go; “Currently 48 cents of each gallon is for taxes and seven cents of each gallon goes to the oil companies.”
Obenshain emphasizes that the GOP has to look to the future because the Democrats have a game plan. “Barack Obama has been on college campuses, one in every twelve days since he was inaugurated. He has a mission to convince young people that socialism is the right and correct way to go. A recent poll showed that an equal number of young people preferred socialism to capitalism. If that does not change, we are done for.”
She finds that college students are all for redistribution until they realize that something will be taken from them and given to another. Then they say it is not fair because they have worked for all they have and don’t want it given away. “Young people are susceptible and Obama is indoctrinating them and they just don’t get it.”
Obenshain was chairman of the Virginia GOP from 2003 to 2006 and also served as Senator George Allen’s chief of staff and as his chief education and health policy advisor while he was Governor. She has been a college campus speaker for the last 18 years, speaking to students on a wide variety of topics including economic policy, national security, education, life, political correctness on campus and the changing role of women in public policy.
