Pittsburgh — GOP Senate candidate Steve Welch spoke to a group of about thirty Pitt students at a College Republicans meeting Tuesday evening, covering many different policy points and addressing a wide variety of questions from the students.

Welch spent a lot of his time talking about the need to strengthen the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, but also noted some points where he felt the national GOP needed to improve its game.

“Demonizing the other side is how we’re driving voters away,” he said. He urged the party to be respectful to the other side and their viewpoints, and focus on demonstrating to voters why Obama and Casey’s policies are flawed.

Asked if the recent focus on social issues was a detriment to GOP efforts to attract independents, Welch agreed. “Social issues do not help us as a party,” he said. “Economic and fiscal issues are going to win Republicans the election in the fall.”

But he didn’t steer clear of the biggest social issue.

“I’m proudly pro-life. There’s a lot of things in my life that reinforce that view,” he said.

Welch, an entrepreneur from Chester County, has spent his career to date in the private sector. Most of his stump speech pertained to his business background.

He spent a lot of time talking about decentralizing the government and lifting many regulations he feels are harmful to small businesses.  When asked how he would balance being a federal Senator but also needing to represent the needs of Pennsylvania’s citizens, he said, “I will push for as much being moved to the states as humanly possible.”  He also said that he’s “a big believer in sunsetting regulations” to get rid of those that no longer make sense.

Casey Rankin is the president of the Pitt CRs. He’s also a member of GOP state committee, and he joined the majority in January to endorse Welch. So did the CRs, in February, Rankin said.

“He was fantastic,” Rankin said of Welch’s appearance Tuesday. “He has the best grasp of the issues. I like the fact that he’s not a life-timer, that he’s worked in the private sector and has business experience.”

Another message Welch strongly stuck to throughout the evening was his attitude towards education on many different levels, especially the need for a push for American students to earn more math, science, and engineering degrees.

When it comes to our public education system, he said, “I will strongly push for charter schools, choice, and vouchers.”  Welch also called No Child Left Behind an “absolutely terrible bill” and said he favors decentralization in education.

On the topic of immigration, he mentioned that we should encourage foreign students who come to America to get their degrees to stay here upon graduation instead of returning to their home countries, where they will become competition for the United States.

One of the final questions from the group was on what he would use as his “guiding principle” if he were elected to the Senate, whether it would be party, his constituents, or something else.  Welch said without hesitation that he would get right to work shrinking the size of the federal government.