Lolita Jackson: When it comes to voting, she says, "a lot of African-Americans have a herd mentality."   (Photo: Nathaniel Welch)

The Rainmaker
I’m cool,” says Lolita Jackson, a bit defensively. “i sing in a jazz-funk band. I’ve sung at CBGB Gallery! I wear leather pants. It’s all good.”

Like she says, she’s black, she’s female, she’s a Republican. Get over it.

Jackson, 36, will be the first to tell you that she’s made it her life’s mission to puncture the stereotypes. Since college, she’s worked in investment banking and lives on the Upper East Side. This year, she was named president of the Metropolitan Republican Club, an organization headquartered on East 83rd Street.

As a child growing up outside New Brunswick, New Jersey, she found herself a guinea pig of expensive and, as she says, painful liberal efforts to integrate public schools. “Education is a big reason I’m a Republican. I was a victim of tracking, busing, you name it,” she says. “I went to school with all these white kids from the farm. We were all black kids in the bus. It was horrific. I escaped in spite of the education system.”

By the time she entered the University of Pennsylvania to study engineering, she had firmly turned against her family’s strong Democratic leanings. Now, once again, she’s a symbol, but a willing one—like Condoleezza Rice, she says. “A black woman with her finger on the button? You gotta love that,” she says, laughing.

But Jackson’s real value to the party is more than demographic. She’s a “Maverick,” a spinoff of the high-flying Rangers and Pioneers fund-raising programs, launched during the 2000 campaign. A Maverick is anyone under 40 who commits to raising $50,000 ($2,000 at a time, the individual campaign-contribution limit). The New York chapter of the Maverick program launched just this past spring. Jackson, a charter member, expects to meet her commitment by June.

“I’ve been out on the street, getting signatures on petitions in front of the Food Emporium on 83rd Street, and have had white people scream at me, ‘You’re not a self-respecting black person,’ ” she says. The cries of protest—traitor!—are even stronger in the black community. “A lot of very educated African-Americans, unfortunately, have a herd mentality,” she says. “They are probably Republicans in their heart, if you ask them what they believe, but they just can’t vote Republican. They want to believe that Jesse Jackson is going to lead them to the promised land.

“In New York City, people think that if you’re to the right of Bill Clinton, you’re a loony,” Jackson adds. “We don’t have horns. My motto is, ‘I’ll stay out of your bedroom if you stay out of my wallet.’ You start making some money, you’ll come over to the other side.”

Andrew Sreniawski: "I find the gay community is less receptive to Republicans than Republicans are to gay people."   (Photo: Nathaniel Welch)

The Contrarian
Andrew Sreniawski has been arguing with everyone for as long as he can remember. If that seems unusual for a bookish young Columbia law student, one must consider how adept he’s always been at putting himself at odds with his surroundings. A staunch family-values Republican and a devout Catholic, Sreniawski grew up in a liberal family in a liberal town outside Buffalo. He’s also gay.

“The Republican Party just fits my views pretty well,” he explains. “I’m pro-life. I also agree with the party’s fiscal policies. The tax cuts are already starting to pull us out of the Clinton recession.” Sreniawski, who wears a BUSH-CHENEY ’04 button on his backpack, brightens considerably at the thought of the president.

“I’m a huge Bush supporter. I think he’s done a great job in the war on terrorism— such a strong president, standing up to the terrorists and the dictators of the world. Freeing the Iraqi people is such an accomplishment, I think he’s going to win in a landslide.

“People are slowly realizing that the Democrats haven’t had a new idea in 40 years,” adds Sreniawski, 24. “The inner city is still impoverished. Kids still aren’t learning. My main focus is on social issues—prayer in school, sex ed. I’m conservative on the full range of social issues—except, of course, my being gay.

“Everyone always says, ‘Isn’t “gay Republican” an oxymoron?’ I don’t think it is,” Sreniawski says. “In order to achieve equality, we need to have gays in both parties. I find the gay community is less receptive to Republicans than Republicans are to gay people.”

Last year, Sreniawski joined the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP organization with 10,000 members nationwide. “I was reluctant to join because I thought they were more about gay issues. I’m a Republican first, gay second. Luckily, I didn’t find that to be the case.”

At Columbia Law School, which Sreniawski thinks “surprisingly liberal,” he has found himself the butt of nearly every debate, and was particularly so in the run-up to the war in Iraq. “The topic of the war really impassions my opponents. To me, it was so clearly the right thing to do.” His gay friends outside school were even more dogmatic. “I just can’t understand that at all,” Sreniawski marvels. “The repressive regime in Iraq was so heinous towards gay rights.”