I really have a problem with self-victimization. For example, I recently read on a fellow student's "blog" where he wrote:

"As many of you know, I'm a minority. I'm a minority in that I'm a conservative on a college campus."

Lots of people make this claim, but how valid is it really? A statistic such as the percentage of college students who associate with a particular political party seems like it would be a pretty useful number to lots of groups. I can imagine that each party want to measure this so that they can claim, for example, that colleges are brainwashing their students, or alternatively, that colleges are bastions of progressive thinking.

In fact, party affiliation among college students is a statistic that is being measured. Since 2000, the Harvard University Institute of Politics has conducted a survey of college students, one in the spring and one in the fall, and compiled those results on their website. You can go to their website and read all about their process, and their questions, and incredibly detailed listings of their results for yourself. To save you that trouble, I am going to take the liberty of quoting their statistics here, on my website.

The most recent survey as of this writing was conducted in March 2006. Regarding party affiliation, each student surveyed was asked the following question.

"When it comes to voting, do you consider yourself to be affiliated with the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or are you Independent or Unaffiliated with a major party?"

To this question, 24% of respondents said that they considered themselves affiliated with Republicans. Well, I guess he is right, he is in the minority! But wait, only 32% of respondents said that they considered themselves to be affiliated with Democrats. So I guess I am in the minority, too! In fact, at 41%, most students considered themselves to be Independent of Unaffiliated.

So really, there is no majority, there is only a plurality and two minorities. In fact, it would seem to me that it's those crazy ranting Independents and their radical Independent ideology is what is polluting college campuses around the country. Next time a College Republican wants to complain about the liberal victimization brought upon him or her, remind him that you, too, are a minority, regardless of your political affiliation.

Now let's get a historical perspective. With all the hating on our current president, what were the numbers for the past few years, back when George W. Bush had an approval rating greater than 50%. The same question quoted earlier was asked in also October 2005, March 2005, October 2004, March 2004, October 2003, April 2003, October 2002, October 2001, and April 2000. Here are the responses given at each of those times.

October 2005: 33% Democrat, 25% Republican, 38% Independent/Unaffiliated
March 2005: 33% Democrat, 28% Republican, 36% Independent/Unaffiliated
October 2004: 34% Democrat, 29% Republican, 33% Independent/Unaffiliated
March 2004: 32% Democrat, 24% Republican, 41% Independent/Unaffiliated
October 2003: 27% Democrat, 31% Republican, 38% Independent/Unaffiliated
April 2003: 29% Democrat, 26% Republican, 41% Independent/Unaffiliated
October 2002: 29% Democrat, 26% Republican, 40% Independent/Unaffiliated
October 2001: 29% Democrat, 31% Republican, 39% Independent/Unaffiliated
April 2000: 34% Democrat, 28% Republican, 33% Independent/Unaffiliated

I made two rows in the above list bright red to highlight apparently aberrations in the status quo. You'll notice that during those two surveys, a greater percentage of students surveyed identified themselves as Republicans than as Democrats. That's interesting, because I thought college campuses were liberal infested rat holes. Apparently, though, the number of students who voluntarily associate themselves with either party is fairly even and bounces back and forth among students depending on the current population of students, and the current political climate. I would go so far as to say that the numbers are relatively even at any given time.

What's most interesting, and often overlooked, is that most college students don't identify with either party. This says to me that most parties are doing a horrible job of connecting with college students and making them care about politics.

Another thing that is generally believed is that college students are more liberal than the general population. Thankfully, Harris Interactive provides this information in a public document that I shall now reference. Here are the trends among the general public for the past five years, just as in our previous table. The question for this table is this.

"Regardless of how you may vote, what do you usually consider yourself - a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or some other party?"

2005: 36% Democrat, 30% Republican, 22% Independent
2004: 34% Democrat, 31% Republican, 24% Independent
2003: 33% Democrat, 28% Republican, 24% Independent
2002: 34% Democrat, 31% Republican, 24% Independent
2001: 36% Democrat, 31% Republican, 22% Independent
2000: 37% Democrat, 29% Republican, 23% Independent

In this list, we see that Democrats hold a greater lead over Republicans than in our similar survey of college students. I can infer, incorrectly or correctly, that college students are actually more conservative than the general public. In fact, if you were to look at the trend over the last forty years by going to the previous link to Harris Interactive, you would see that the number of people who affiliate with the Republican party is actually increasing by considerable numbers.

So in the future, don't give me this crap about how Democrats and capital L Liberals are ruining our educational system and how you feel like Democrats are making your life miserable while in college, because the numbers seem to indicate that there aren't as many Democrats in college as people seem to think. As a registered Democrat (at the moment) I might as well say that "we" are not making your life miserable. You really only have yourself to blame.