I thought I'd just take a minute out of my busy day to write a little introducation for my new Townhall blog.  My name is Melissa Westmoreland, and I'm a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Class of 2006.  I studied Political Science and History while there, and participated in a wide range of extra-curricular activities as well.

For lack of a better word, I was the poster child for conservatism at a very liberal university.  I wrote the "token conservative column" for our campus newspaper for two years, and during that same time frame I co-founded the Conservative Union on campus and served as President for the College Republicans.  Needless to say, I was well-known around campus, though not extremely well-liked.

My friends often referred to me as the conservative scapegoat on campus -- if anyone ever had a grudge against a Republican, I was the person on whom they took out their anger.  This meant everytime the Republican-led Congress passed a bill with which they disagreed, everytime Bush sent more troops to Iraq, I was the person who got blessed out.  I once even had a student approach me to yell about the fact that Dick Cheney had accidently shot some guy!

I was simply the closest thing my professors and fellow students had to a conservative punching bag, and it made them feel like they had done their duty as a liberal American to yell at someone who held the beliefs which they so despised.  There were other Republicans, but few of them dared speak.  Most of them realized that they didn't want to become the new me after I graduated.  The few that did try to speak their minds usually ended up retracting what they had said, and sometimes even apologizing, in order to keep the angry liberal mobs off their backs.

I survived it all somehow, and I'm now using my experiences to my advantage.  I am currently writing a book detailing my experiences with liberal professors, students, and even members of the administration.  The tentative title is "Scapegoat".... and I think it fits my college years perfectly.