Stephen Dewey has lived in Dorchester, Massachusetts for his entire life, and has attended public school since kindergarten. During Stephen’s childhood, he attended the Patrick O’Hearn kindergarten and elementary school and the Oliver Wendell Holmes school, both of which are located in Dorchester close to Stephen’s home. Stephen attended sixth grade at the John W. McCormack middle school, before being admitted to and attending Boston Latin School starting in the seventh grade. Stephen is a member of the class of 2003.
Stephen’s interest in politics began as an affinity for history. A voracious reader as a child, Stephen took a particular liking to children’s world history books. By reading them, he learned about many of the world’s great leaders and how they guided their countries, and developed a particular liking for Julius Caesar. Stephen also benefited from an academic program at his school for which he wrote reports about the world’s ancient civilizations and modern nations, and tracked important stocks on the stock market.
Despite his exposure to government, however, Stephen continued to be convinced that a career in the world of technology or science was what he wanted. Stephen grew plants for fun and performed science experiments with them, designed a derby car for a Boy Scouts competition, and tried to change his computer’s base-level programming (fortunately to no effect). During his first years at Boston Latin, Stephen was heavily interested in his science and technology classes, and basically ignored what went on in his Latin and French classes (He would later regret this!). As a freshman in high school, Stephen joined the varsity track and cross country teams and became more socially active; at this point in his lifetime, Stephen really was no more than a quite casual scholar.
The presidential election of 2000 was a major turning point in Stephen’s life. That summer, Stephen was constantly exposed to the media (especially NPR), which was then entering its presidential frenzy. With not much else to do but sit around, Stephen started following every twist and turn of the news reports about Bush and Gore that were flooding the airwaves, and started to take a strong interest in the race. A typical Bostonian, Stephen favored Gore and began to listen eagerly for any good news regarding his candidacy. Stephen’s knowledge about government from his childhood played a large part in his ability to enjoy the race for its own sake, however, and led Stephen to check the AP newswire nearly hourly, which exposed him to the efforts of both campaigns to spin stories in their favor. Eager to get a piece of the action, Stephen signed up as a volunteer intern in the office of Speaker of the House Tommy Finneran, and served there after school for 5 months, during the heat of the election, the crisis afterward, and the first two months of Bush’s presidency.
When the election crisis in Florida occurred, Stephen was originally adamantly in favor of Gore; an opinion that, in retrospect, was obviously politically motivated. When the Supreme Court blocked Gore’s appeal, however, and Gore conceded, Stephen was dismayed that many in the Democratic party refused to recognize the decision and contended that Gore had been robbed; it seemed to him that the fairest possible decision had been reached. This disagreement, while not changing Stephen’s political stance outright, led him to re-evaluate his own exaggerated belief in Democratic infallibility. Thus, Stephen began to consider himself an independent.
By this point, Stephen had become adamantly and permanently engrossed in politics, and continued to follow the media, which was back to covering politics-as-usual. Not content to remain an independent, Stephen resolved to either ‘rejoin’ the Democratic party or ‘join’ the Republican party. A frank review of his position on social issues, which from childhood had been based in his Christian beliefs and included a host of pro-life and pro-family stances, convinced Stephen that he would not be welcome in the Democratic party, and thus Stephen began to consider himself a Republican. Since then, Stephen has found that although he does not completely toe the Republican line, he agrees with them on about 95 percent of the issues, which is much more than he had thought possible prior to the 2000 elections.
Now determined to make his mark on the world via the political system, Stephen has developed a large number of connections with the Republican establishment. He is the Communications Director for the Teenagers for Republican Victory, a national coalition with chapters in all 50 states, as well as the Massachusetts Editor for GOPUSA.com. He is the Media Coordinator for the Boston Latin Young Republicans Club and the captain of the nonpartisan Boston Latin Debate Team. Stephen recently attended the Massachusetts State GOP Convention, and is a heavy financial supporter of the Massachusetts Citizens For Life.
Stephen is still in the process of determining his college plans. Although he is keeping an open mind, Stephen is looking especially closely at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown, and Princeton. Needless to say, Stephen hopes to get into one of the aforementioned schools more than he actually expects to. Stephen is currently serving in the office of Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, where he helps the Citizens’ Information Service with its duties.