DNC

Sarah Burris of Future Majority beats me to the punch in rebutting a blog post about a “Rising Tide of the GOP Youth,” as described by The Weekly Standard’s Rachel Hoff. Burris writes:

First, while Rachel is right to congratulate McDonnell for his campaign’s youth outreach, I hardly think it has anything to do with young voters having gone to the GOP…

This doesn’t mean young voters have gone GOP, it means that when you put forth the effort to get young voters, you speak to their issues, and you get out the vote you get a good result.

I wish I felt comfortable celebrating the fact that the 2009 elections meant young voters were turning toward the GOP, but unfortunately I just don’t buy it. Hoff suggests that “18-29 year olds in Virginia voted for Bob McDonnell over the Democrat 54% to 44%” could indicate a new trend, but as Burris notes, in Virginia there was not a “strong Democrat at the top of the ticket but…[there was] a strong Republican.” The unfortunate fact is that one Republican candidate’s successful effort in winning the youth vote does not indicate any sort of trend for future elections (for a counterargument, just look to New Jersey, where 57% of young voters voted for Corzine).

And while Hoff notes that “turnout among 18-29 year olds was 19% in New Jersey and only 17% in Virginia,” an “alarmingly low” turnout, it would be a huge mistake for the GOP to write off the youth vote based upon these numbers. As I have written previously, what’s at stake here is that the Republican Party stands to lose a generation of voters to the Democratic Party, potentially for life. Although Chairman Steele has taken some major efforts to reform the Republican National Committee, such as a huge push to modernize the RNC’s new media efforts, there still has not been a substantial push by Steele’s RNC to win over young voters.

In the end, both Burris and Hoff agree that making a real, authentic effort to earn the votes of young voters will result in young voter turnout. The Republican Party still has time left to turn the tide and prevent many of today’s young voters from becoming lifelong Democrats; however, the clock is ticking and time is running out. Major congratulations are due to the McDonnell campaign and their young voter outreach, but there is no time to pat ourselves on the back. Both the RNC and Republican candidates must follow Bob McDonnell’s lead and find unique new ways to reach out to and ultimately win over young voters.

After the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans celebrated electoral victories that many thought would put them in the position to maintain a long-term majority. In turn, Democrats pushed the panic button and began looking for ways to turn things around. Likewise, after 2006 and 2008, it was the opposite effect, with Democrats claiming a permanent majority, and Republicans looking to rebuild.

Once again, the political climate seems to be changing, this time in favor of Republicans. President Obama’s approval ratings are continuing to trend significantly downward, with the latest Rasmussen Poll even suggesting that the majority of Americans disapprove. More voters believe that the economic stimulus plan has hurt the economy than helped it. Support for the public health option continues to tumble, too.

Looking at these trends and others, Patrick Ruffini writes that a 2010 blowout is quite possible, and I really don’t disagree at all. However, I wanted to offer a word of caution in the case Republicans win (or win big) in 2010, despite the fact that I recently Tweeted the following:

No more “[Name] for President” group invites on Facebook, please. Let’s focus on winning in 2010 first and worry about 2012 after!

Such a victory in 2010 will by no means indicate that things are better for Republicans long-term. Rather, it would be the result of a number of fortunate circumstances. Just see Ruffini’s suggestions as to why Republicans should prepared for a blow out:

• The horrendous 2006 and 2008 cycles have depressed Republican totals in Congress to far below the historical mean. Though the fact that there were two successive 20+ seat losses in the House and 5+ seat losses in the Senate in the House is historically unique, collectively they equal one 1980 or 1994-style wipeout — after which Democrats finally began to recover.
• The unique confluence of youth and African American turnout for Obama padded vote totals for Congressional Democrats by about 4 points — and in a midterm — I’m sorry — those votes won’t be there. We saw this pretty clearly in the Georgia Senate runoff. In 2012, however, those voters might be back — making 2010 an opportune moment for a promising Congressional challenger to gain a foothold.
• The Democrats are now clearly responsible for everything, and trying to blame Bush and the GOP wears thinner and thinner by the day. Even if the economy recovers somewhat, and with massive job losses still on the horizon, I don’t see people feeling that recovery, let’s remember that the economy was in a clear recovery by 1994 but that didn’t help Clinton and Democrats.

The bottom line — and what Republicans cannot forget, even with a huge win in 2010 — is that these fortunate circumstances are not something around which you can build a sustainable majority. Voters aren’t always going to be ticked about the economy, the Democrats won’t always have a filibuster-proof majority, and although the “unique confluence of youth and African American turnout” may not be there in 2010, as Ruffini notes, “in 2012 … those voters might be back”. And as I’ve been writing about lately, the RNC hasn’t done a darn thing to try to win over young voters while the DNC continues to find new ways to earn their support. While these voters may not show up in 2010, in 10-15 years they will no longer be youth voters — instead, they will represent the kind of middle-aged voters that Republicans will need to turn out, both during Presidential election years and during mid-term and other off years.

So while there are many reasons to be excited about the prospects of 2010, the political climate will likely change again from 2010 to 2012, as it often does.  Although focusing on the short-term may end in positive results in 2010, Republicans still must think long-term about building a sustainable majority. Otherwise, the GOP may soon again face another 2006 or 2008 — but the next time, it may be much harder to turn around.

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?

Swing State Project sees tomorrow's special election to fill Rep. Gerry Connelly's seat as a proxy fight and preview of the fall Republican and Democratic gubenatorial match up:

If the Dem wins, I expect we'll see all kinds of competing claims over who deserves credit. Of course, the GOP will just say that the Dems should have won, and they'd be right - Fairfax went 60-39 for Obama. On the other hand, a loss or even a close call will lead to predictable recriminations and give Virginia Republicans a dose of momentum they certainly don't deserve. Regardless of who wins our gubernatorial primary, that's something the Dems can't afford.

There is, potentially, another interpretation. Perhaps it is a proxy fight between Tim Kaine and Michael Steele. Certainly the VA GOP is at a low point (hopefully). But the VA Democratic Party should be riding high, and Tim Kaine, both the Dem governor of Virginia and Chairman of the DNC, would suffer a huge black eye from a GOP victory, which is not out of the question.

In January, an 80-20 district, District 46, was won by the Democrats by only 16 votes. This may be found to be the beginning of the end of one of the Democratic candidates for governor:

This is a bad sign for Brian Moran and Alexandria Democrats no matter what the end result is, this is one of the most democratic districts in the state (75% for Obama, 80% for Warner, and 73% for Kaine) and the margin is razor thin!

We have a chance tomorrow to scalp another Democrat and help Pat Herrity pull this off. Michael Steele would get to go on TV and claim that "the comeback starts now" with him.

It would be a great symbolic rallying moment for the GOP and a wonderful way to start Steele's chairmanship. 

Barack Obama today answered a lingering question on the shape of his political organization as President:

Defying expectations, Obama 2.0 (Organizing for America) will not be a 501(c)4 nor will it be a political committee independent of the DNC. It will be an operating unit of the DNC, and presumably running the show on South Capitol.

This is a wise decision on their part. A (c)4 would have limited direct involvement on behalf of 2010 candidates, and probably would not have provided a seamless transition to a re-elect. Crucially, Obama 2.0 gets to keep the BarackObama.com URI ($) and presumably the President's visage all over the place, thus capturing people motivated by Obama and not by the DNC (Dean discovered how hard this was...). As a political committee, Obama 2.0 will have broad leeway to say or do whatever it wants. This is not quite as aggressive as filing Obama 2012 with the FEC on Tuesday, but it's close.

There is a lesson here for the right. We tend to file (c)3's when we should be filing (c)4's, and (c)4's when we should be filing PACs. Usually, this is to get the benefit of unlimited contributions or tax deductibility, but when you've figured out how to massively fundraise $50 at a time, this is not as much of a dilemma.

The Nation has a profile on Howard Dean that's well worth reading.

Money Graf:

A few months later the state chairs asked Dean and the other contenders for DNC chair to give $200,000 a year to each state party. Dean enthusiastically embraced and enlarged the plan en route to easily winning the DNC race and gave every state the resources to hire at least three or four organizers and access to a high-tech database of voters, which became the twin cornerstones of the fifty-state strategy. Under Dean, battlegrounds like Ohio still took priority, but every state got something. That might not sound like much, but it was practically a revolution within the Democratic Party, which tended to view the DNC as a PR agency and ATM for Congress and/or the White House. "We had a great building and no debt," Dean says, referring to the work of his predecessor, the high-flying Clintonite Terry McAuliffe. "But there was essentially no technological infrastructure and no political infrastructure of any worth." The states, by and large, had been left to fend for themselves.

As someone who was skeptical about Dean, I'm surprised how successful he's been.  That said, there are certain lessons I think we need to learn from this moving forward:

1) COMPETE EVERYWHERE - This is the most important lesson we need to internalize.  That's why I wrote my controversial blog post about San Francisco.  Woody Allen says 80% of success is showing up and he's largely right.  Where Dean dispatched organizers (sidenote: I still HATE that term; any alternatives?) to Indiana and Alaska, we should dispatch organizers to Maine and Wisconsin with the goal of electing Republicans at the state and local level while hoping to pick up the occasional House or Senate seat.

It's important to physically show up and ask people for their vote.  I have a family member who is a VERY Conservative Republican Redneck Bitter Clinger who lives in John Murtha's district.  This guy votes the straight Republican ticket EXCEPT for John Murtha.  Why does he vote for Murtha?  He votes for Murtha because every 6-8 months Murtha shows up at the bar he hangs out at and talks to him about the state of world affairs and the guy just likes Murtha personally.  If John Murtha can do this, why can't we pick off some Dems doing roughly the same thing?

In 2009, there will be a Governor's race in New Jersey.  With the economy tanking, Governor John Corzine wil eventually raise taxes.  Unfortunately for him, New Jersey has a history of tax revolts.  This gives us an opportunity, but we have to start organizing for it now.

I live in Austin, TX.  We have a House seat here I'm convinced is winnable.  I'll address this in more detail later.

2) Nuts can still do Nuts and Bolts - It wasn't just The Scream.  As anyone who remembers his 2004 Presidential campaign can attest, Dean frequently made colorful remarks.  As DNC chair, that didn't matter.  Dean's responsiblity was strictly electoral, he didn't have any role in shaping public policy.

On our side, that means reaching out to the Ron Paul crowd.  They've shown that they have a knack for online politics and they've been successful.  While I find their views on Foreign Policy masochistic, I still agree with them on more issues than not.  Why not bring them aboard in a more systematic way?

3) Apostates are OK; Grandstanding RINO's are not - While the article doesn't touch on this, another major factor in the Democrat rise was that they nominated much more conservative candidates.  Democrats were willing to tolerate a few ideological apostates in order to win; they just won't tolereate those members grandstanding against their own party.  We should take the same approach.

Thoughts/Suggestions?!?

No one wants to be Mark "Where's the Bounce?" Penn this week. Any hard and fast proclamations about polls should be resisted, though the race apparently tightening post-Biden is certainly one data point to consider. 

We can only conjecture about the environment, and how it is likely to affect the polls. And the environment is less than it could be for the Obama-Biden ticket during their big week.

• Biden isn't inspiring and doesn't win votes. I can appreciate this was a governing decision, and not a campaign decision. But that will cost Obama in the bounce department in the next couple of weeks, and lead him to underperform in September polling once the RNC dust has settled (assuming McCain does well with his VP pick).
• The Clinton chatter is dominant. The Clintons will get two nights in Denver -- Hillary Tuesday, and Bill Wednesday. The coverage on the cables so far this morning has been all about the Clintons. High-profile Clinton surrogates complaining about the lack of VP vetting with the RNC/McCain capitalizing, Bill being upset about his speech topic, Hillary jerking her delegates around, effectively telling them "Nevermind" after making a show about the "catharsis" of the roll call a couple of weeks ago. If the Clintons really wanted to screw with Obama's chances, setting up Hillary 2012, this would be the week to do it. And this is what they seem to be doing.
• The DNC program leaves much to be desired. Is Michelle Obama big enough to carry her own night when you typically want 2-3 high profile speakers in prime time? Jim Leach (this is the biggest Republican you could find for Obama?) and Claire McCaskill being given more prominent slots than the emotional Kennedy tribute? 50% of the Convention being devoted to the Clintons, with all the distractions that brings. Where the RNC schedule is almost too cluttered (Lieberman, Schwarzenegger, Cheney & Bush on one night), the DNC's barely packs a punch.

Of course, 80% of the bounce will come post-Thursday, so any speculation here is mostly academic. But the schedule and optics aren't optimized for an above-average bounce. And as 2004 showed, the lack of a convention bounce matters.

Ok, I think I am beginning to understand democrat logic which actually scares me. No, I haven't bought in - Chas v'Shalom, but I am seeing a picture now which I will try to illustrate.

The modern liberal/democrat must be able to ignore truth for vision. Vision of course, without truth is fantasy. But that doesn't stop the left. When fantastical beliefs in new ideas emerge, ideas which are based upon fantasy more so than observation, on idealism more so than realism, on a slavish connection to a misnomer casting away thoughtful analysis, then you have liberal thought.

Basing policy on this reasoning is the core mandate of liberal democrats. Even when it is pitifully obvious that the results of this process is destructive, the process is held in such esteem that the results cannot be criticized. Jimmy Carter's priorities in foreign policy come from that system. It permits antiJewism so long as his far-fetched policy derived from the fantasy led process of analysis is intact.

Carter will be speaking at the Democrat National Convention next week in Denver. Even though there are still some level headed Democrats around who understand that the Carter chain around the neck of Obama is a poltergeist of Joseph Goebbels which Obama will have to wear through November, they are powerless to prevent a talk by the former President who is the standard setter for liberal thought today. The process must have its day after all.

What message is Obama trying to send? Clearly he or his team have approved or cancelled speakers at the convention. So Obama must approve of Carter the antiJew speaking at his convention. Democrats have a problem because they have fostered and accepted this sort of non-sense thought inside their tent. Obama is stuck with it whether he likes it or not. My guess is he does like it. It strengthens him and gives credence to his appeasement manner.

The dems are trying to stem the tide of the dissolving Jewish vote, putting "rabbis" on the agenda and continually trying to bolster Obama's Jewish credentials. But sending out Carter the fantastical antiJew to the podium will by necessity remind everyone of Carter's Jew baiting. This is not the best America can do.

Expect McCain to pick up additional Jewish support as a result of the dems convention and it's media coverage. The alternative media should have a field day with this one. Kudos to the Young Israel for their courage and leadership.
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/151814 
Young Israel Calls on Democrats to Cancel Carter Speech - INN
(IsraelNN.com) The National Council of Young Israel has called on Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and party leaders to cancel next week's scheduled address by former American President Jimmy Carter at the party convention in Denver, Colorado. Carter's public statements and his recent visit to Syria have attracted widespread criticism among pro-Israel supporters.

Young Israel president Shlomo Z. Mostofsky and executive vice president Rabbi Pesach Lerner stated, "Affording Mr. Carter a prime speaking engagement on the Democrats' brightest stage is an affront to the State of Israel, and to all American Zionists, whether they are Christians or Jews.

"In April, 2008 he deliberately and wantonly ignored the wishes of the United States government when he traveled to Syria to meet with Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas' terrorist organization. The fact that he embraced Hamas, a terrorist group that has repeatedly called for the destruction of the State of Israel, the obliteration of the United States, and the annihilation of the Jewish people, was a slap in the face to Israel, the U.S., and Jews everywhere."
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 A Handy List of Carter is an AntiJew Articles

http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=645   ZOA presser on Carter - poll manipulation

http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=394  ZOA presser 2 on Carter - visits to Syria, recognition of Hamas

http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/ZOA-Carterbook.pdf  Condemnation of Carter book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid as untruthful on Standwithus/ZOA flyer

http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000301.html  Zionist Leftie Criticism of Carter

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Former_President_Carter_blames_media_proIsrael_1217.html  Rawstory.com: Includes Carters NY Times OP/Ed which tries to explain why Jews should trust Hamas and how they convince other Americans that Hamas is really bad even though they are not (barf)

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2006/12/is-carter-anti-semite.html  Rosner article from Haaretz on trying to figure out how to sort antiJew Carter from a antiJew Mersheimer.

http://www.aish.com/societyWork/society/Jimmy_Carters_Jewish_Problem.asp  Deborah Lipstadt on antiJew Carter published by AISH

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3346022,00.html Levi Brackman, YNET calling Carter out

http://www.adl.org/israel/carter_book_review.asp Foxman/ADL He unjustly encourages Israel-bashers around the world. 
 

Podcast Show Notes

There's a fine line between audacity and arrogance and Obama seems to keep crossing it. From using a Wailing Wall apperance for political gain (Hat Tip: Right Wing News.) To removing the American flag from the tail of his plane to put his own logo on it.

House Republican Leader: John Boehner. The man with no plan or why House Republican leaders don't want a second contract with America.

Jindal says no to being Veep.

A sweetheart deal for the DNC Host Committee.

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