Wharton junior Dan Kline sits forward in his chair in Huntsman Hall, puts his hands to his lips, and -- with intensity in his eyes -- enumerates the problems he feels college students face living in West Philadelphia.
Student housing. Government transparency. Transportation. Police presence.
The Republican has decided to try to take matters into his own hands and run for Pennsylvania state representative on his party's ticket.
"This doesn't have to do with age," he said. "It has to do with desire and drive."
This past month, Kline approached Philadelphia Republican ward leaders Matt Wolfe and Andy Gentsch about running for state representative in 2006, and both Wolfe and Gentsch took to the idea. Many consider Wolfe and Gentsch to be influential resources on the Philadelphia Republican political scene.
Kline -- a native Philadelphian -- says he has been involved in local Republican politics since high school. He has spent significant time working for local and national Republican candidates and groups. Kline also served as an election observer in the 2004 presidential election.
"This isn't some flash-in-the-pan guy who rolled out of bed one morning and decided he wanted to play politician," said Wolfe.
Kline plans to run in Pennsylvania's 188th district, which encompasses the entire Penn community, many University of the Sciences and Drexel students, some Temple students and certain West Philadelphia neighborhoods. The district is traditionally a Democratic stronghold. Its current state representative, Jim Roebuck, is the top ranking Democrat on the Education Committee in the state House of Representatives.
"As a Republican in a Democratic machine town, he's going to have a lot of things working against him," Political Science Professor Henry Teune said.
Kline charges that Roebuck has ignored the needs of the students in his district and that he has let the "mediocrity of incumbency make him complacent."
Kline's campaign goals include making student housing more available and affordable and pushing a general transit bill through the state legislature to help with SEPTA's budget deficits. He also hopes to increase the police presence in West Philadelphia and holding hearings in Harrisburg and town meetings in his district to make government more "transparent."
Kline expects that his campaign, which is in what Wolfe calls the "embryonic stages," will appeal to both college students and West Philadelphia residents and have a bipartisan tone. He is running as a "moderate Republican."
"I'm a uniter. This is not about Democrat versus Republican," Kline says. "I'm not a career politician. I am someone who students can identify with. I'm in their classes; I run a bar night at Smoke's."
Others are more skeptical about Kline's ability to unify the diverse groups in the district. After analyzing the breakdown of votes between the Republican and Democratic opponents in the 2003 Philadelphia mayoral race, Teune says that even if Kline mobilizes a large number of students, the election will still be the "students versus the neighborhood."
President of the Penn College Democrats and College senior Rich Eisenberg says that students should not just vote for Kline because he is their peer.
People need to "look beyond the fact that Dan is our age. Roebuck has been great for education, and he is very in line with Ed Rendell's ideas," he said.
Whether Kline wins or loses, though, Teune believes his decision to run is healthy for American democracy. "By running in a strongly Democratic area, he is helping to keep Philadelphia politics alive," Teune says. "We need a vital political environment. Otherwise, what's the point of elections?"
