Visitors Discuss Politics With NHS Students

By Eliza Hallabeck

Two political experts visited Newtown High School on Friday, September 14, telling students that, like their respective political parties, despite their many differences, they share some commonalities.

Chris Healy, advisor to the Republican Party and former GOP chairman, and Roy Occhiogrosso, senior advisor to Governor Dannel P. Malloy, spoke to multiple classes in the high school’s lecture hall on the topic of politics.

NHS Social Studies Department Chair Candace Dietter said the assembled students are studying the political parties and the differences between them.

After giving brief descriptions of their backgrounds and sharing their reasons for being either a Republican or a Democrat, Mr Healy and Mr Occhiogrosso answered questions from the students.

Both Mr Healy and Mr Occhiogrosso said their families are why they are a Republican and a Democrat, respectively.

Mr Healy said he believes in a lot of the components of the Republican Party, and said he spent a good part of his life in politics. A piece of advice Mr Healy gave the students is to not make politics their full life until later. He told them to make their life first, with politics on the side.

The differences between the parties, Mr Occhiogrosso said, are not as large as they are sometimes made out to be. He also pointed out the largest philosophical difference between the parties is on the size and scope of the government. For Mr Occhiogrosso, he said, the government generally does great things.

Other core differences, Mr Occhiogrosso said, come up when social issues are brought up. Those social issues, he said, include same-sex marriage and, “a woman’s right to choose.”

The differences between the parties, Mr Occhiogrosso said, sometimes get muddy and too personal.

Mr Healy and Mr Occhiogrosso also discussed historical and recent examples of the two parties working together to create compromises.