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Kansas Young Republicans Mobilize

Johnson County (Ks) Young Republicans Jennifer Estes (l) and Stephanie Sawyer Clayton prepare to watch acceptance speech of Sen. John McCain.
KCUR photo by Dan Verbeck
Johnson County (Ks) Young Republicans Jennifer Estes (l) and Stephanie Sawyer Clayton prepare to watch acceptance speech of Sen. John McCain.

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-755320.mp3

Members of the Young Republicans organization of Johnson County, Kansas greeted the nomination of Senator John McCain as head of the party's national presidential ticket with businesslike fervor.

Some three dozen men and women, ages 18 to 40, met at a Shawnee restaurant banquet room and were stuffing campaign envelopes for a state senate candidate before turning attention to the big screen broadcast from Minnesota.

University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate student Jennifer Estes says younger party members' enthusiasm doesn't get as much attention as do Democrats in their age bracket, but her colleagues have their own passion.

"I do think that we are working together and we are hoping to come back to what Reagan had, where he unified the party. I think we're looking to making that same kind of stride with McCain's nomination," Estes said.

Watch party organizer Brandon Kenig said ten people signed up to attend in the first two hours after he put the event on a McCain website.

"Five of those people said they'd never been involved in politics -- local, national, state -- until now. One woman said she had been behind Hillary Clinton but is now supporting McCain," Kenig said.

Kenig, 23, says he first got involved in Republican Party politics when he was a sophomore in high school. He and Estes are precinct committee leaders.

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