Aaron Marks's blog

For much of the build up to the 2008 Democratic primaries, the consensus among political oddsmakers, pollsters, and politicos (myself included) was that Hillary Clinton was virtually a shoo-in to win the Democratic nomination. After all, the Clintons were the most powerful name in the Democratic Party, and as a result the Democratic machine fought tooth and nail to ensure Clinton’s victory. However, after the Iowa caucus, it became clear that Barack Obama — the junior Senator from Illinois with less than a full term of experience under his belt — would provide some serious competition for the nomination. In the end, the Democratic machine backing Clinton was pitted against the grassroots who supported Obama, and a fairly incredible phenomenon in politics happened: the grassroots won!

The ongoing Senate race in Florida between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist presents the Republicans with the very same narrative. Crist has received the endorsement of the NRSC, while a large portion of the GOP grassroots and netroots has expressed an outpouring of disdain for the endorsement and are fighting to elect Rubio (or at least for the NRSC to remain neutral in the race). Although not quite at the Presidential level, this is very much the GOP’s version of Obama vs. Clinton.

Of course, the important question here then is, “Who ultimately controls the GOP, the grassroots or the machine?” — and obviously, the only way to answer this question is to see how the race turns out.

(Personally, I’ll be pulling for the grassroots. If you feel the same way, you can donate to Marco Rubio here.)

Two days ago, I wrote that we must give young voters a legitimate role in the future of the Republican Party. The clock is ticking for these crucial changes to take place. Recognizing this, our team of young Republicans at NextGenGOP and I have launched the Petition for Our Future. Now you can join the many voices asking Chairman Steele to expand the role of young voters in the GOP by signing the petition! Please sign the petition and encourage your friends to do the same!

We also need your help in spreading the word about the petition. In the next week, we will be adding a page that lists our featured endorsers. This page will show your name and link back to your website! To become a featured endorser, all you need to do is write a blog post about the petition, linking back to the petition here. Once you’ve done so, drop me an e-mail with a link to your blog post by going to my online business card.

We have a great opportunity to encourage Chairman Steele and the Republican National Committee to act now and win back young voters. Please sign the petition, help spread the word, and be a part of this vitally important cause!

Over at FutureMajority.com, a left-of-center blog that "covers the involvement of young voters in progressive politics," Michael Connery brings attention to this:

Want to be a member of the Democratic National Committee? The DNC Youth Council is now accepting resumes from young people interested in becoming At-Large members.

What exactly is an at-large member of the DNC? At-large members are full-scale, policy-shaping members of the Democratic National Committee who are appointed by the DNC Chairman and approved by the DNC.

Also take note of the fact that the Youth Council is a separate entity from Young Democrats — it is an official arm of the Democratic National Committee charged with winning over the youth vote for the Democratic Party. The Youth Council’s mission reads as follows (emphasis added):

The Democratic National Committee’s Youth Coordinating Council (Youth Council) was formally constituted as a council of the DNC in December 2005. The goal of the Youth Council is to increase opportunities and improve participation by young people, under age 36, in the activities and structure at all levels of the Democratic Party. Among the purpose and goals of the Youth Council is to ensure that the Democratic Party maintains a majority of the youth vote which it currently holds with a wide margin.

Reading all of this forces me to ask two critical questions. First, where is the Republican National Committee’s version of the Youth Council? I’ve previously written that the RNC must establish some sort of “Young Voter Outreach arm,” but to this day nothing of the sort seems to exist (or even be in the works). Indeed, when I did some Googling, the closest thing I could find was an outdated page that still has talking points related to President Bush’s accomplishments.

Second, why isn’t the RNC offering these same sort of full-scale voting positions to young voters? If the GOP wants to win over millennials, then the RNC must be willing to not only listen to young voters but also to give them a substantial role in shaping the future of the party. Putting highly qualified young Republicans in the position to have a real say in the decisions regarding the future of the Republican Party would demonstrate that the GOP actually cares about winning the youth vote and is not just comprised of older generations.

Earlier, Jon Henke wrote a blog post that concluded that:

Republicans had better become more appealing to young people, because patterns established in youth persist for life.

The Democratic National Committee is taking serious strides to woo the youngest bracket of voters by empowering them to make real decisions in the Democratic Party. Without the RNC doing the same, young voters will continue to flock to the Democratic Party — a dangerous trend that could establish a generation of lifelong Democrats. Michael Steele was installed to reform the Republican National Committee and right a rapidly sinking ship. So Mr. Steele, are you listening?

Crossposted at NextGenGOP.com.

One of my lesser known traits is that I’m a huge Trekkie (and I don’t say “huge” lightly). However, the Star Trek universe had recently been undergoing a pretty substantial collapse, culminating in the closing of Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas. Desperately trying to revive the franchise, Paramount Pictures contacted J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman to create a film that would appeal to a wider audience than the typical Star Trek movie — in essence, entirely rebooting the franchise. One of my concerns as a fanboy was that doing this would substantially change the franchise from Gene Roddenberry’s original vision. Judging by the success of Star Trek so far and the overwhelmingly positive reviews the movie has received from both critics and viewers (it is now #62 on IMDB’s top 250 movie list), the reboot has successfully achieved its goal of widespread appeal. And although there were a number of deviations from the days of Roddenberry in the new film, I was able to reconcile these deviations with the fact that the franchise was in dire need of change to regain the widespread appeal that was necessary to keep it alive.

Now how does all of this relate to politics?  Well, after the devastating 2008 elections, many of those on the right (myself included) believed that things couldn’t get much worse. After all, President-elect Obama had just won in a decisive landslide, and Republicans lost 8 seats in the Senate and 21 in the House. The Democrats outpaced Republicans in virtually every area, and the only glimmer of hope Republicans could hold onto for the next two years was the knowledge that Republicans would be able to filibuster Obama’s most radical plans in the Senate. Today, even this looks incredibly unlikely with Senator Specter switching sides and the reality setting in that comedian-turned-politician Al Franken will likely be the next Senator from Minnesota. For a while I felt cautiously optimistic about the 2010 elections — the energy of Rebuild the Party and similar movements to rebuild the GOP was profound, conservatives seemed to be on the brink of a rightroots movement, Michael Steele took over the reigns at the RNC, and Joseph Cao achieved enormous electoral victory while Jim Tedisco seemed poised to win in NY’s 20th. However, much has changed since those developments, and it seems that Republicans are not on the best track to turn the tide in 2010, let alone in 2012 or beyond. Indeed, although a turnaround is possible, the clock is ticking, and like the Star Trek franchise, the only way that the GOP can turn things around is with a complete reboot.

Over at Time magazine, Michael Grunwald raises some important points about this matter. He writes:

The party’s ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it’s not a majority agenda.

While I find much of the content of his argument biased and inaccurate, the overarching point he raises is that the issues Republicans are pursuing are not those of “a majority agenda.” Regardless of whether conservative positions on these issues are popular or unpopular, they aren’t the kind of issues that build a majority and win elections — particularly during trying economic times. This is an important point that Republicans must somehow reconcile if they wish to return to majority status. Jon Henke points out (emphasis added):

The Republican brand does not merely need a little tinkering. The Republican brand is not the victim of Democratic rhetoric and framing. The Republican brand is so bad because people accurately perceive the state of the Republican Party.

And although it is sometimes well deserved (see Arlen Specter’s vote on Obama’s stimulus package), lambasting all of our moderate Senators and Congressmen doesn’t help. One of the things I used to celebrate about the Republican Party was its diversity in ideology — something that continues to diminish with the loss of Specter, giving the Democrats the opportunity to be the ideologically ‘diverse’ party. In a two party system, you cannot build a winning coalition that encompasses only the far side of the political spectrum. The bottom line is that Republicans will likely never see another day in the majority if its electorate only supports candidates with impeccable conservative credentials, outcasting any elected officials or candidates who are near the political middle. In states such as my own (Pennsylvania) and many others in the region, a Republican candidate can only win the general election if he or she is moderate. For just one example of the impact of accepting moderates, look to the U.S. Senate — would you rather have 11 moderate Republicans in the Senate in addition to our current Senators and hold a majority, or only allow full-on conservatives and sit comfortably in the filibuster-proof minority?

The fact is that it is time for a reboot, or as Henke says, “actual, painful, reform.” The Republican Party needs to find new issues around which to coalesce, issues that appeal to mainstream Americans and are not knee-jerk reactions against the Obama administration’s plans. One thing that Republicans cannot wait for is the Democrats to fail. Meanwhile, GOP voters need to realize that moderates — who may not always be perfectly conservative — have their place in a nationally viable party. Only with these recognitions and a total overhaul of the GOP can Republicans move maximum warp speed ahead into the future.

Crossposted at NextGenGOP.

Kudos to people who are busy doing something. - Jon Henke

It has now been 135 days since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Since that time, the talk in the Republican Party has generally revolved around the notion of “catching up” — be it catching up in fundraising, in our use of technology, or as I’ve argued, the way that we take advantage of peer production. Earlier today, Gary Andres makes a very important argument that relates to the ongoing public debate over Obama’s agenda. Gary writes:

I call it “making noise,” so that those normally not paying much attention to politics sit up and listen. … Less politically engaged Americans tend to hear the “loudest voice in the cafeteria.” These efforts by liberal organizations and Democrats help project the White House agenda to this often hard to reach, but key constituency.

Gary is darn right about this, but it seems that no one is asking the question that naturally follows:

Let’s take a glimpse at the evolution of the role of technology and so-called “new media” in politics. In the early years, there were “Web” departments — for example, my colleague Patrick Ruffini served as the “webmaster” for Bush-Cheney ‘04. The new jargon for this role has become “new media,” which typically serves as an umbrella for all forms of “new” communication, such as the Internet and mobile technology. The problem lies in the fact that we are still using the adjective new, which inherently distinguishes it from other forms of traditional media (i.e. TV, radio, and so forth). Accordingly, the people who oversee new media are called “New Media Directors” and work in “New Media,” while the people who oversee traditional media are given the title of “Communications Director” and work in “Communications” or something along those lines. The bottom line is that not only is “new” media no longer new, but even more importantly, “new” media is rapidly replacing “traditional” media. If the right is going to become the side on the cutting edge, then right-of-center campaigns and organizations must ensure that the separation of traditional and new media comes to an end.

The decline of traditional media becomes clear when you look at recent polling trends. For example, a substantially increasing percentage of Americans turn to the Internet for their news. Moreover, a poll taken in 2008 indicates that nearly 70% of Americans consider traditional journalism to be “out of touch,” and as a result the plethora of respondents use the Internet as their primary source of news and information. Twice as many Americans said they “regularly learn[ed] something about the [2008] campaign from the internet” as they did in 2004. And of course, millennial voters almost universally turned to the Internet as their primary source for 2008 election news.

In addition, there were two Presidential campaigns whose profoud impacts demonstrate the importance of integrating all forms of media. It goes without saying that President Obama ran an incredible web-based campaign, raising two-thirds of its money online and peer-producing 200,000 offline events, 400,000 blog posts, and 3 million phone calls. Likewise, Ron Paul’s campaign was almost entirely organized and built around the Internet, using existing tools like Meetup.com to build an incredible yet extremely low-cost national infrastructure. What was the differentiator between these two campaigns and most of the others from the past cycle? They didn’t separate “new media” from their other operations; instead, they allowed it to serve as a sort of circulatory system that fed and empowered every other part of their organization. “New media” wasn’t a part of their campaign; it was their campaign.

The line between traditional and new media is disintegrating, and therefore, separating the two puts the right at a disadvantage. So let’s embrace this change. “New media” must become “media,” and must be embraced as the heart and soul of our campaigns and organizations.

Crossposted at NextGenGOP.

Yesterday, I expressed concern about the fact that newly elected RNC Chairman Michael Steele has yet to make “any significant new effort to win over millennials.” Today, however, I want to recognize Steele for something he has done exceedingly well.

Take a look at this chart: the blue line depicts the historic percentage of respondents who give a negative rating to current economic conditions (source: Gallup), while the red line depicts the historic percentage of respondents who support the economic recovery package proposed by Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats (source: Rasmussen).

Although the polling is not long-term enough to indicate a definitive trend, the chart suggests an intriguing possibility: although the public perception of the economy continues to turn increasingly negative, the percentage of the public that supports the stimulus bill is dwindling. In many ways this may seem counterintuitive considering that Americans presumably desire economic relief, particularly as the state of the economy grows more and more severe.

This data seems to indicate a high level of pragmatism among the public — instead of looking for a quick fix laden with excessive pork barrel spending and rampant government growth, they want a long-term and effective solution. This is also a sign that those who proclaim the death of conservatism are severely jumping the gun. Whether this trend will continue as the economy and the public’s perception of the economy fall to even lower levels remains to be seen. However, if it does, it will be further evidence of a nation that remains decidedly center-right, at least on fiscal issues.

One of the more prevalent notions that I have read lately is that Republicans should focus on criticizing Democrats in Congress instead of President Obama due to the President’s sky high approval ratings. Conventional wisdom suggests that Republican attacks on an enormously popular Obama would likely backfire and instead hurt Republicans, while Democrats in an incredibly unpopular Congress are much more susceptible to damaging attacks. Senator Lindsey Graham today took a very different approach, taking the fight directly to the President and arguing that Obama has been “AWOL on providing leadership.”

Graham’s strategy clearly breaks with what is perceived to be the smarter — or at the very least, safer — method of winning legislative battles. His willingness to do this bears the question: can such attacks against the President be successful despite his popularity? I’m starting to think so. After all, as I touched on yesterday, Republicans are currently winning the debate on the stimulus package, and its popularity continues to diminish. Considering the GOP’s minority status in Congress and the terrible results of the 2008 election, this is quite impressive. Moreover, the image of the Obama administration has been tarnished in the early goings by an abysmal vetting process that has resulted in three separate nominees who have been involved in tax controversies.

With the economy continuing to tank and headlines constantly running about rampant corruption (Blagojevich) and tax controversies (Geithner, Killefer, and Daschle), the public continues to grow increasingly frustrated. After all, where’s the “hope” and “change” for which they just voted when they elected President Obama? Perhaps by taking a gamble and following Senator Graham’s lead in going directly after President Obama when he’s wrong, Republicans can take a step toward winning back the majority in 2010.

Crossposted at NextGenGOP

A few days back I wrote a post comparing the troubles of the Republican Party to the woes faced by the Pittsburgh Penguins, and today I want to offer another relevant hockey analogy. Last year, the Penguins came within two games of winning the Stanley Cup. Going into this season, many fans and experts expected nothing less of the Pens than earning a top playoff seed and perhaps even a return to the Stanley Cup Finals. Right now, however, the Penguins are struggling to maintain a winning record and simply make the playoffs — widely considered to be a given entering the season. The failed expectations have resulted in people making calls ranging from the extreme, such as firing head coach Michel Therrien, to the outright absurd, calling for trading Sidney Crosby, who is almost universally considered to be among the best hockey talents in the world.

This is a simple example that clearly demonstrates the fact that expectations can be truly damning when they are not satisfactorily fulfilled. Therefore, as President Obama takes office today, it is important to note the incredibly high expectations facing his administration and the possible repercussions of those expectations.

Indeed, a New York Times/CBS News poll notes that “hopes for the new president are extraordinarily high,” while today’s Gallup poll finds that 72% of Americans think the country will be better off in four years and that 62% expect Obama to be an outstanding or above average President. U.S. News and World Report writes that, “Americans’ expectations for the nation’s 44th president are, like the estimated million-strong crowd at his inauguration, at a historic high.”

Abraham Lincoln, to whom President Obama has looked for inspiration, once cautioned, “The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.” These high hopes for the Obama administration could turn to disappointment and frustration if, for example, the economy continues to sour in the long term after Obama passes his stimulus package. If, in the eyes of Americans, our new President successfully meets the expectations, Democrats will have a strong position in 2010, and he will likely be nearly impossible to defeat in 2012; however, if the public believes he failed to meet these expectations, it may well open the door to significant Republican electoral opportunities in 2010 and beyond.

That said, today is a day to put political differences aside. As a nation we are all in this together, and so I sincerely wish President Obama the best in leading this incredible nation through these difficult times. Congratulations President Obama!