Melissa "Missy" Langsam is a  familiar name to Harvard conservatives. Her frequent dissents on the Crimson editorial page, executive board position on the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club, and recent columns for the Independent have made her into a de facto leader of campus conservatives.
        Her most recent effort in the realm of campus politics has been the revival of Jews for Conservative Politics. The Hillel-affiliated group, founded in the spring of 1997, floundered until Langsam assumed the role of chairman in the fall. Since then, it has hosted numerous events, including lectures by Professors Ruth Wisse and Harvey Mansfield, as well as former congressional representative Susan Molinari and former Christie Todd Whitman staffer Marguerite Sullivan. Though some of the events did suffer from weak attendance, the Wisse and Mansfield lectures drew crowds both from within Hillel and from other segments of the Harvard community.
        Certainly the most successful event sponsored by Jews for Conservative Politics was the recent Conservative Coming Out Dinner, which brought together dozens for an evening of patriotism and bonding in the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel. The dinner unabashedly flaunted its support for America and its institutions, a rare find on the Harvard campus. Unfortunately, it also featured a favorite conservative past time that Langsam says is one of the things she hopes the JCP avoids -- whining.
        In typical confessional form, nearly everyone at the event spoke for a few minutes about how difficult it is to be a conservative. Tear-jerking tales of a first-grader being chastised by the teacher for supporting Ronald Reagan, a teen-aged campaign volunteer having doors slammed in his face, and dozens of Harvard students suffering the liberal onslaught on this campus lent the evening the bizarre feel of an Alcoholics Anonymous confessional gathering.
        For those familiar with the conservative ethos this comes as no surprise. Conservatives have long tended towards whining. Even amidst the apparent ascendancy of their political values, conservatives often complain that they suffer from discrimination of one sort or another.
        Langsam, however, insists that the JCP offers a positive vision of conservatism. Viewing much of campus conservative activity as either the complaints of a self-consciously victimized group or the polemical response to the prevailing liberal culture, Langsam thinks that JCP activities present a conservatism with values of its own. This self-confident conservatism would defend ideals such as liberty, democracy, and personal autonomy and responsibility.
        If the JCP will, in fact, serve this role it could be a great asset to campus conservatives. The phenomenon of conservative defeatism has long been a puzzling one. If conservatives do not desire to lose, they often seem most comfortable while in a state of losing. This would explain why conservatives -- apparently on the verge of triumph on issues like school choice, tax policy, social security reform, deregulation, and a host of other issues -- might allow their opponents to steal their turf, retreating instead to losing issues, like preaching to America about its values. While there is no doubt that American culture is a field worthy of conservative attention, the shift of focus away from winning issues often makes it seem like conservatives have a secret death wish.
        The question remains: How does the JCP plan on achieving this goal?
        Answering this question requires first asking what is unique about the JCP. On a campus already endowed with an active Republican club and a biweekly conservative publication, what unique attributes does the JCP bring to the table? Langsam's first hope is that the JCP will offer a more welcoming environment to campus conservatives who felt uncomfortable in the Republican club. Whatever the source of that discomfort, an organization that will increase the involvement of a broader range of campus conservatives is certainly welcome. But while this might offer an addition to campus conservative activity, it still falls short of the qualitative shift towards Langsam's more positive conservatism.
        Perhaps this shift, so desperately needed by conservatism, lies in the group's Jewish roots. At a JCP-sponsored lecture, Professor Ruth Wisse expounded upon the conservatism inherent in Judaism. Seeing the respect for tradition and the nature of its restrictive behavior code as the embodiment of fundamental conservative principles, Wisse argued that while most Jews do identify as liberals, it's the conservatives who most exemplify Jewish ideals. Though such a black and white characterization certainly fails to represent the intricacy of Judaism's attitude to politics, if one can even speak of such an attitude, it does highlight a potential uniqueness of JCP.

Hopefully, Jews for Conservative Politics will succeed in articulating a positive message linking Judaism to conservative politics. If so, they will finally present an affirmative value system that conservatives can defend vigorously -- and maybe even be satisfied with in victory.