The College Fix

Many say they see her as dishonest and hypocritical 

The presidential campaign of Democrat frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have fired up many College Republicans, who have hosted demonstrations against the politician that not only attack her policies, but her character.

This summer, as Clinton visited Los Angeles for a fundraising stop, College Republicans from across Southern California converged outside the Democratic headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard to protest Clinton’s hypocrisy, participants told The College Fix. The demonstration took place after America learned Clinton claimed she and husband Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House in January of 2001.

Amanda Fitzmorris, a member of the UCSD College Republicans, held signs urging passing cars to “honk if you’re as dead broke as the Clintons.” Fitzmorris said their efforts resonated, that they “got attention from our community and got people to ask themselves questions and really make them think.”

Some College Republican chapters have taken to pointing out Clinton’s dishonesty by having a little fun with her decision to wipe her computer email servers, a decision currently under investigation by the feds. 

Last week at the University of Southern California, for example, College Republicans handed out what they dubbed “Hillary Wipes” – essentially repackaged baby wipes.

“What we’re trying to do here is really bring awareness to the fact that Hillary is not answering questions about what happened in reference to her email,” USC College Republicans president Jacob Ellenhorn said. “She joked about them being wiped ‘with a cloth or something’ and I think we are holding her accountable on campus.”

Leesa Danzek, another member of the USC College Republicans, added “people tend to excuse Hillary Clinton,” which makes efforts to point out her flaws even more vital.

Similarly, at the University of California, Berkeley, College Republicans held a “secret server wipes” demonstration at the beginning of the school year. Member Kerida Moates said the effort was partly meant to point out Clinton’s lack of transparency, which runs afoul of their club’s passion for free speech.

On the other side of the country, College Republicans have argued Clinton’s feminism falls short, between the fact that she pays her female staff less than men to “Clinton’s hypocrisy when it comes to her pandering to women and college students,” College Republicans leader Lauren Cooley told The College Fix. Some protest signs have read “not my kind of feminism,” for example.

Another big issue College Republicans tackle during protests is the fact that Clinton raked in almost $2 million in speaking fees for appearances at public and private universities, Cooley added, noting it flies in the face of her complaints over student loan debt.

But perhaps one of Cooley’s favorite College Republican protests, she said, came by way of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where students passed out informational fliers about Clinton that reminded the campus that she played a great part in covering up the terrorist attacks that happened in Benghazi, among other points.

“When Clinton campaign volunteers found out about the fliers about Clinton, they were running around campus trying to collect them before her speech at the university,” Cooley said. “This was a hilarious protest.”

Hilarious for some, but not all students see it that way.

Reaction among those receiving the “Hillary Server Wipes” at USC was mixed. One student, when asked if they would like a free wipe, looked at the banner saying “College Republicans” and immediately said, “No, oh hell, no.” Other students, however, got a good chuckle.

One graduate student returned to where the club was handing out the wipes and said: “I had to come back because this is funny. That’s risky to do around here.” And a professor told club members that he would add the wipes to his collection of political memorabilia, saying as he walked away, “Thank you for what you’re doing out here.”

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