Career

While the RNC continues to stand pat instead of giving young voters a legitimate role in the future of the Party — or even simply establishing its own Young Voter Outreach Arm to compete with the Democratic National Committee’s Youth Council — the Democrats continue to find new and innovative ways to involve young voters in the Democratic Party.

Michael Connery at Future Majority notes that the DNC Youth Council, along with College Democrats, is holding a joint fundraiser, presumably to “show the party committees that young people can help [Democrats] raise money.” You can view the entire event for the “Celebrating Youth Fundraiser” on Facebook, but the highlight is this:

Come meet Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), DNC Vice Chair Raymond Buckley, DNC Political Director Clyde Williams, Organizing for America Political Director Addisu Demissie, former Obama for America Youth Vote Director Leigh Arsenault, and young staffers from the Obama administration to learn about the amazing career opportunities available in Democratic politics.

For a party that sits squarely in the filibuster-less minority status, I would think that the RNC would be eager to find innovative ways like this to involve young voters and recruit new young faces to help rebuild the party.

After all, when Michael Steele took over as Chairman of the RNC, we were promised that things would change. So when will the RNC start fighting to win young voters and to involve new leaders in the party’s future?

As a former staffer for Senator Rick Santorum's 2006 re-election campaign, I distinctly recall the false attacks brought against Santorum for his supposed belief that women were meant to remain at home.  The attack was based upon a distortion of a quotation from his book It Takes a Family.  The actual quote from the book was:

“In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to.

"“What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children in the care of someone else – or worse yet, home alone after school between three and six in the afternoon – find themselves more affirmed by society? Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism."

Of course, the Left distorted these passages, claiming to be outraged that by Senator Santorum's sexism – because of the lies they had spread claiming that he believed that women belonged at home and not at work.

Now, we have Howard Gutman, a former member of Barack Obama's finance committee, saying with regard to Sarah Palin:

"If you take a daughter who’s got this emotional strife and subject her to the most intense scrutiny of the world at this time in her life, I think you’ve put your career above your family."

So where is the outrage from the Left?  The Obama campaign disavowed Gutman's comments, saying:

"Obviously these comments do not reflect our frequently stated, crystal-clear view that families of the candidates should be off limits, and we hope that supporters on both sides will act accordingly."

These statements reflect the typical, insincere disavowals that we have come to expect from Senator Obama's campaign.

Quite frankly, statements like these are outrageous, dirty, and entirely unacceptable.  So I ask again:  where is the outrage from the Left?  Well, the answer is apparent – they only take offense to when it is politically convenient for them.

Aaron Marks is President of Three Group, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based new media firm that focuses on providing technology-based solutions for Republican candidates and organizations, and in particular has built Web 2.0 campaign management software called Mission Control.  Aaron also worked in new media and voter outreach on Senator Rick Santorum's 2006 re-election campaign.