PIHS grad finding a place in politics
A college student from Presque Isle who wants to be a teacher and maybe one day a lawmaker is getting a unique experience at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Isaac Michaud, a 2015 Presque Isle High School graduate and sophomore at the University of Maine at Farmington, was selected to attend the convention during July 18-21, 2016 as the page for the Maine Republican Party.
“I’ll be kind of like an intern, running back and forth getting ballots and papers and information between the national committee people and the state delegates,” said Michaud, chair of the College Republicans at UMF.
Michaud wasn’t planning on going to the convention and hasn’t been enthusiastic about Donald Trump, but a friend noticed the Maine Republican Party advertising the position online and suggested he apply to witness a piece of American history.
“It’s the experience of a lifetime,” Michaud said.
Since getting involved with conservative causes in high school and starting a degree in education and history, Michaud has gravitated toward a number of issues he’s interested in, including free market economic policy and school finance reform.
“I want to be a teacher, and I don’t think teachers get paid enough in Maine.”
Michaud did not vote during the Maine GOP Caucus, by which time his preferred candidate, Carly Fiorina, had dropped out. He was also at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. that weekend.
After Fiorina, Michaud said, “I liked Marco Rubio, and then I liked Ted Cruz, and now there’s Donald Trump.” Whether he’ll vote for Trump is “something I haven’t decided about yet,” Michaud said, mentioning that he could support Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, the former Republican Governor of New Mexico.
“I’ll probably figure it out when I walk into the ballot booth. I think a lot of people are going to do that, too.”
Michaud said that he and other young Republicans — including a number of candidates for state legislature in The County — are looking beyond Trump, both in this election and in the years to come.
While Michaud plans to pursue a teaching career, he said he’d also like to get involved in government.
“I’ll probably start local. I don’t know if I’d ever want to be president, but who knows.”
