Tech outreach wooed youth to BHO

What's the campaign doing to attract young voters, I asked a McCain official last month. The look on her face was all I needed to know, but her response made it worse. "The campaign has pretty much given up on reaching out young voters," she said. "They have all pretty much bought in to Obama’s message.” Imagine my shock when I heard this. By that logic, I was voting for Obama. Truly shocking! She went on to lament that young people really believed in the Democrat’s positions on global warming, health care, the war in Iraq, and even the economy. This devout McCain supporter was being very honest and sincere with what she said and what seemed to be the common wisdom within the McCain camp.

It took me a few days to really digest what exactly those sentiments meant and what implications they might have on American politics. If we are to believe that young voters have already “bought in” to the positions of the Democratic Party, the GOP is in much deeper trouble than ever imagined. If the Republicans can't win over the youth on at least one of the most important issues of our time, the future of the party is bleak—better yet—non existent. And the Conservative Movement would be done for too.

Fortunately, I don’t buy it and neither should you. Here is why.

What President-elect Obama’s campaign did (brilliantly, I might add) is talk to young voters in their language: technology. He bridged the digital divide with a vivid and robust campaign largely waged on the internet. He had advertisements on various websites, search engine ad words, blogs, facebook groups, and much more. His online campaign was so well organized that he even sent an email out to thank all of his supporters while he was on his way to make his acceptance speech.

Why does any of this matter? First off, if you are asking that question, you are part of the problem. But it matters because technology is a low cost way to get a targeted message out to a lot of people. His ability to do this not only allowed him to capture a lot of votes and volunteers for walking precincts and such, but it also allowed him to build an unparalleled donor base—made up mostly of small donors. Each one of his email messages went out asking for $5 or $10, an amount even a college student is willing to shell out if she believes in the cause.

Obama’s campaign online, made it very difficult for McCain to make up the difference on the ground because the internet support translated into real world volunteers and real money.

But we can’t blame John McCain or the RNC, there is no way they could have seen this coming. Ha! Howard Dean laid the framework for this type of campaign warfare in 2004 when he was running for President. His fortitude in online fundraising and campaigning is largely the reason he is the Chairman of the DNC. This was a well thought out, well implemented campaign strategy that paid dividends. And it will continue to pay dividends for some time.

For the GOP, the time is now to design, refine and implement. I would say it is catch up time, but catching up is no longer good enough—the party will need to find a way to get ahead of the curve. It is not too hard to do, so online marketing, video content, targeted messaging, and some interesting original content and they are off to a start.

More importantly though, don’t write off the youth. There was one Republican during the primary--dull, uncharismatic, and little quirky—that was able to make inroads with youth voters in droves: Ron Paul. At one point during the campaign season Ron Paul achieved the record for online fundraising (which I believe was later shattered by Barack Obama). Much of Ron Paul’s groundswell of support is easily attributed to a strong internet based campaign that was largely targeted towards youth voters.

And while Ron Paul is not by any stretch of the imagination “in line” with the orthodoxy of the Republican Party, many of his limited government, free market ideas resonated with young voters -- which should at least give a little hope into the willingness of my generation to listen to good arguments.

To win on blue, think anew

Democratic chairman Howard Dean was ridiculed for his 50-state strategy, but who's laughing now? Dems just made big gains in states that had been red for many years. Here in Colorado, there are clearly red and blue legislative districts. For instance, in 2008, my district (House District 10 in Boulder) voted 75% for the Democratic candidate. The operative question for Colorado Republicans is, what should we do about blue districts? For instance, is it a good idea to nominate a liberal Republican in a blue district?

Matching candidates to districts is a tough issue. I think the GOP is a big tent in many ways. While social conservatives are an extremely important part of the GOP coalition, I believe it is perfectly reasonable to match a social moderate candidate to a socially moderate district. What we can’t do is nominate RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) – this dilutes the message of mainstream Republicans in other districts. Aren’t you embarrassed by what some GOP congressmen have said and done, all while claiming to be a conservative?

The key quality for candidates in blue geographies is the ability to articulate why and how freedom-centered policies benefit different audiences. For instance, school choice should sell well to parents in failing school districts; and anyone should be able to see how reining in the runaway tort system would make health care more affordable. I would prefer that candidates in these long-shot districts take courageous stands on big-picture policy ideas, and not seek to pander with small ideas. Make it clear, make it fresh, and make it relevant. We offer a common sense approach to problems real people face. We are not the tired old Republicans of years past – we are New Republicans: grounded in applying principals of freedom for a more civil, more prosperous, and freer society.

Most Coloradans don’t care what team a potential representative is on – they care that their representative understands their challenges, can articulate policy solutions to help, and act with integrity and character to enact those policies. We win the greatest number of races not by sounding like imitation Democrats, but by candidate’s articulating in both intellectual and emotional language why our principals are better for the people of their district.

Dems seize digital dominance

Obama has "built the largest network anyone has ever seen in politics, and congressional Republicans are clueless about the shift," says strategist Joe Trippi says on the front page of today's Denver Post. This story is huge. If Republicans are not addressing the Dems' digital dominance as though our lives depended on it, we deserve whatever continued political woe may come to us.

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Obama's vast Web operation alters political playing field (By Beth Fouhy, AP) http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_10969183

GOP must recover its North Star

(By Rep. Tom Tancredo) Barack Obama won the presidential election by making it a referendum on the Bush presidency and by making McCain look like a Bush clone. Voters decided they wanted more "change" than McCain could be expected to deliver. Whether that was a fair or accurate characterization of McCain's policy agenda is now a quaint question for historians. What we know for sure is that the voters opted for “change” without any real understanding of what kind of change they will get.

Even before all the dust has settled, there are some clear lessons for Republicans from the McCain campaign and eight years of the Bush presidency. Some of the lessons are obvious, but some are hidden beneath several layers of political correctness.

First, Karl Rove's grand paradigm for a "permanent Republican majority" built on "compassionate conservatism" was grand hype based on a grand illusion. No political victory can be permanent; each generation must fight for human liberty all over again. Bush's spending programs in Medicare, education and elsewhere succeeded only in vastly increasing the national debt without creating any new Republican constituencies. This orgy of government spending greatly damaged the "Republican brand" and left Republican loyalists dismayed and disoriented. Eight years of George Bush and the idiosyncratic McCain campaign have left voters confused about what Republicans stand for.

Second, it was neither smart politics nor smart policy to allow Ted Kennedy and the American Immigration Lawyers Association to write a Bush-McCain immigration reform plan which gave only lip service to border security. Those congressional battles alienated 90% of the Republican base and 75% of independents. Did the McCain support of two amnesty plans in 2006 and 2007 win him more support among Hispanic political groups than Republicans normally get? No. McCain could not out-pander the Democrat party and it was foolish to try.

A third lesson of the Bush presidency is that a large segment of the American news media has abandoned any serious pretense to objectivity and adopted a partisan agenda. The mainstream news media attacked George Bush for eight years through a relentless barrage of biased reporting and selective indignation: “Bush’s Failed War Strategy”… “Bush’s Oil Company Ties”… “Bush’s Deregulation of Wall Street”…“Bush’s War on Civil Liberties”….”Bush’s Approval Rating Plunges”….Some people can escape the impact of such incessant, poisonous negativism, but the millions of Americans who do not listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity could not.

The lessons of the McCain campaign mirror those of the Bush era. McCain did not run as a Republican until the final month of the election. In 2007 he launched his campaign as a "maverick," a man who was above party, a man who relished bipartisan deals like McCain-Feingold, echoing Bush’s early efforts to “rise above ideology.” This Lone Ranger theme earned him the approval of the liberal media only as long as he was running against conservatives in the presidential primary, but once he had the nomination locked up, the establishment media turned on him. "Maverick" is a style, not a program of reform and not a set of principles. By the time McCain began articulating a Republican agenda that could appeal to independents and blue-collar workers, it was too late.

McCain's campaign did not catch fire until the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The McCain operatives who now try to blame Governor Palin for the campaign's failures are both wrong and dishonest. It wasn't Sarah Palin who failed to deliver even a knockdown punch in three debates with Obama, and it wasn't Sarah Palin who forbade any mention of Obama’s association with Reverends Wright and Pfleger, the anarchist Ayers, the felon financial adviser Rezko, the PLO agent Khalidi and the vote fraud machine, ACORN.

The news media gave Obama a pass on his long association with these radicals and never subjected his tax and spending proposals to serious scrutiny. Republicans were blamed for the credit crisis despite Democrat fingerprints all over the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac scandals and Fannie Mae political donations to Obama. Sarah Palin was constantly ridiculed while Joe Biden's incoherence and frequent gaffes went unexamined.

In truth, McCain was at times his own worst enemy as a campaigner. "Economics is not my strong suit," he admitted in an interview one month before the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Lesson from Politics 101: Let your opponents discover your Achilles heel if they can, don't confess it on national television.

Can the Republican Party rebuild to gain substantial victories in 2010 and 2012? Yes, absolutely. In the first place, recovering the principles, vision and verve of Ronald Reagan will be a lot easier with Barack Obama in the White House and George Bush back on his ranch. Candidate Obama could demonize Bush, demagogue oil companies and Wall Street, and avoid spelling out his own policies in detail. But populist rhetoric must now yield to concrete legislation. After the public gets a look at the real Obama and his socialist plans for sharing the wealth across the globe—and yes, socialist is the most accurate term to describe Obama’s philosophy --- Republican alternatives will not only seem respectable, they will be downright attractive. Not everyone in heartland America drank the New Change Kool-Aid; many voters would have voted for Benedict Arnold just to poke Bush in the eye. That sentiment will dissipate quickly.

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan has endured a tortuous detour down the Bush Parkway and then into the McCain cul-de-sac. Fortunately, we do have a compass —a compass called the Constitution and a north star called limited government. The first step to regain our bearings is to stop talking about where we have been and start thinking about where we want to go. More than the future of the Republican party depends on our resilience and our abiity to chart that new course successfully.

Congressman Tancredo retired this year after representing Colorado's 6th district since 1998 and competing in the 2008 presidential primaries. This article first appeared in HUMAN EVENTS on Nov. 5.

For blame, look in the mirror

Tuesday at 6am I entered the precinct to open the polls. Sealed off from radio, TV, Internet, and even my cell phone, I knew nothing of the races until I emerged 14 hours later, my judge duties fulfilled. Too exhausted to join friends at election night headquarters, I turned my car for home. Alone in my living room, I watched the results with bleak resignation and feared for the future of my country. Wednesday morning with eyes cleared by eight hours of sleep, I viewed the true toll of the election in the morning paper. With cold amusement, I relived a scene from a favorite film of my youth and imagined conservatives hiding out on a frozen planet while the Empire reasserted itself across the known universe.

What in the world happened? Republicans across the country may be asking the same question. It would be easy to blame a deeply biased press, glitzy Hollywood endorsements, billionaire contributions, fraud a la Acorn, and the sheer eloquence of Barack Obama for the outcome of the election. Truth be told, however, the seeds of defeat were sown in the late 1990's when Republicans abandoned the principles of limited government and embraced the power of big government to advance its own ends.

No longer the party of constitutional limits, federalism, and individual rights, the GOP eagerly supported federal regulation, new entitlements, expansion of earmark spending, Great Society-like programs, nation building, economic planning and historic spending increases. In doing so, they lost the support of the base and the people they were trying to court. After all, why pick Democrat-lite when you can have the real thing.

For the past decade, few Republicans have been able to articulate why limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility are necessary for the preservation of individual freedom and national prosperity. Democrats, however, have eloquently made the case that big government, new entitlements and programs, higher taxes, and economic planning are in the nation’s best interest. It is not surprising that liberals managed to sway a great many in this state and across the nation to their viewpoint.

The silver lining is that leftist ideas are not in our best interest. Ideas have consequences and the change Democrats have in mind will bring economic hardship and social injustice. Just as FDR’s New Deal intensified the depression and LBJ’s Great Society programs mired generations in poverty, Democrats’ ideas have a predicable outcome. It is only a matter of time before the hope of a government-created utopia wears thin and people feel the consequences of this election.

In the meanwhile, the GOP has an opportunity to rebuild the party to be the freedom-loving, libertarian, limited government party. We need to do a housecleaning that sweeps out bumbling Me-too Republicanism and embarrassing politicians like the pork barreling Ted Stevens and anyone claiming to have a wide stance. Republicans who say they support the Constitution but in opposition to its principles, continue to advance their own programs, entitlements, and agendas will find a more receptive place on the other team.

Equally importantly, Republicans need to learn to articulate the case for freedom and why government programs encroach on the free will of individuals. Making the case for freedom can be difficult task. Free stuff is a much easier sell than freedom especially when the American people have come to believe that the purpose of government is to make them happy not to protect their right to pursue happiness. We must show them that the free stuff that Democrats promise comes at an enormous cost – freedom itself.

The consequences of leftist policies will surely make the case for us, but Republicans must be prepared to lead when the time comes.

Krista Kafer's column appears weekly on Face the State.com. Reprinted by permission.