The 56th Presidential Inauguration

One of the great things about going to school in Washington, DC is the easy access that we have to events of great consequence. One such event, regardless of my feelings about it, was Tuesday's inaugural ceremonies. If you check my Facebook page, you can see the pictures we took of our space in

I'll spare a play by play of the day (if you really want to, you can check out my Twitter feed at @senrabsemaj, which lasted until my hands got too cold to type), but I wanted to comment on some basic conclusions which I drew from the day:

1. There are no words to describe the transfer of power from one man to another

As someone who actively campaigned against him, the ceremony inaugurating President Obama affected me in a way I would have never imagined. When President Bush took the stage (as the disgusting and classless crowd booed him), it wasn't surprising to hear the President's Own Marine Band play Hail to the Chief. What caught me off guard, however, was how they played it after Obama took the oath. In that moment, what I had been avoiding since November became real. Barack Obama became President of the United States.

2. An interesting look into the politics of crowds

The Wall Street Journal wrote a great piece in late October about the politics surrounding the crowds at Obama's campaign rallies:

America is a different land, for me exceptional in all the ways that matter. In recent days, those vast Obama crowds, though, have recalled for me the politics of charisma that wrecked Arab and Muslim societies. A leader does not have to say much, or be much. The crowd is left to its most powerful possession -- its imagination.

From Elias Canetti again: "But the crowd, as such, disintegrates. It has a presentiment of this and fears it. . . . Only the growth of the crowd prevents those who belong to it from creeping back under their private burdens."

Reading those words last October, I had never been to an Obama rally, and had never experienced first-hand the cult of personality surrounding him. As of now, with an updated headcount of 1.8 million in attendance, I am confident in saying that I witnessed his ultimate rally, and came to similar conclusions.

A scene I won't soon forget at Sunday's concert that is helpful in defining what I witnessed on a broad scale: a woman was literally singing a hymn to Obama. Looking back, it will be the single most memorable moment of my inauguration experience. Obama is obviously and thankfully not the Messiah (in fact, I've heard more of the opposite). But, despite its incredulity, it and two million people chanting his name on the National Mall paralleled something the Journal pointed out--at a certain point in a crowd, rationality exits and is replaced by imagination.

3. Washington is damned cold in January.

JB

Karl Rove is now on Twitter

As Twitter continues to grow, please welcome the newest member of #TCOT @karlrovechannel. Twitter has started to explode in the past month, and I'm incredibly excited to see where it goes from here.

A more detailed post on Twitter and the democratization of the internet (and what that means for conservative activists) is forthcoming.

JB
@senrabsemaj

[late] (and brief) reactions to this afternoon's debate

Saul--Did well, as expected.
Blackwell--Better than expected.
Steele--Underperformed, IMHO.
Duncan-- Someone get this man off the stage.
Dawson-- Confused as to what he's trying to accomplish.
Saltsman--Memorable paraphrase: we need to focus on minority outreach .

Overall, debate was a good introduction to the personalities of all six candidates.

Low moments: Ron Paul question (while ignoring the fact that Norquist skipped over Paultard questions), pissing contest over social media ("I have more FB friends than you!" [Duncan-- "I have a personal blog!"], question over favorite website was setup for self-promotion.

High moments: Saul--"Social media is useless without networks of people"-- IMHO was the single best piece of insight as we struggle with how to use social media, #Rebuild questions were spot on, as expected, and congrats to Charlie Smith for providing a great question about college students with better than expected answers--most notably from Saul Anuzis and Ken Blackwell.

I hope to learn more about the candidates in the next few weeks but, of course, I don't decide who wins, 168 members of the RNC do. Fellow CR's--contact your RNC members and speak your mind. There is nowhere near enough interest in our age group in this race, and we provide a needed perspective.

Coming soon-- I'm thinking of starting an e-activism guide for CR's any suggestions/contributions?

JB
@senrabsemaj

College Students to the RNC: We Care, Use Us!

College Students to the RNC: We Care, Use Us!


Originally published on www.thenextright.com

by James Barnes and Brandon Hines, The George Washington University College Republicans

WASHINGTON, DC. Fellow Republicans: As we enter a fresh new year, it's easy to be discouraged by the battle ahead. The Obama Administration promises to pursue an agenda of socialist redistribution. On top of this, the 111th Congress has just convened, and it's the most liberal in our nation's history. Together, this double-headed monster threatens to grow another in the form of a new judiciary.

Sitting in a position we have long been removed from, our first step has been to question what got us here. We've started to regroup, on Twitter, on the web, and soon by reconsidering who should lead the RNC into 2010 and beyond. And, through these exercises, we've come up with some basic answers to the question of what got us in trouble. We've blamed it on our grassroots, our fundraising, our web presence, our message, and a slew of other equally valid reasons, which we promise to overcome in the next election cycle. We hope to argue, however, that many of these issues boil down to one oft-overlooked component: a focus on engaging and activating the 18-24 demographic—College Republicans.

As the future of our party and, in many cases, the most passionate advocates for our platform, it is important that the RNC not only reach out and speak the language that we speak and communicate the way that we communicate, but that it engage and empower the youth of the party in helping to win elections. In this vein, the party already has a virtual army of well informed and connected potential activists, who, in many cases, simply haven't been asked to volunteer the resource they have the most of: their time. Though we lack the ability to donate large sums of cash, or the experience needed to run campaigns, we make up for this with cheap labor and an uncanny, even absurd, ability to remain in instantaneous contact with our peers and advocate for what we believe in. It is time for these and other potential resources to stop being overlooked, and for the RNC to directly engage the future of the party.

Consider this: during our organization's deployment by the RNC this year in Ohio, a state never lost by a Republican president, we never met a single student from an Ohio college. Elsewhere, in 2007, many argue that we lost the Massachusetts special election due entirely to a complete absence of area college students. Contrastingly, in Georgia's recent runoff, the unusually strong showing of college students from Maine to Texas served to bolster a winning campaign—a notable exception to a troubling rule. College Republicans exist everywhere. In this regard, it's very simple; it's not about changing the minds of college students-- it's about activating and empowering the ones who already care. To our detriment, this is something that Barack Obama knew all too well.

In the coming years, the promise of victory does not tolerate the prospect of an inactive college demographic. This is why we, with the support of many of our friends in the young conservative movement, are calling on the next RNC chairman to pledge to directly engage the next chairman of the College Republican National Committee in kick-starting a strong partnership for a radically better next four years. In this, they should plan for a future that utilizes CR’s in dominating new media, more directly involves college students in party operations, and most importantly, ensures that, in 2010 and beyond, every willing College Republican will be afforded the chance to work for a Republican candidate through a better organized and more broadly utilized College Republican grassroots operation in every state. On the path to victory, this is an important stop that has the promise to change the future (and the face) of our party for the better.

James Barnes and Brandon Hines are the Political and Public Relations Directors, respectively, of the George Washington University College Republicans and are working to re-engage Republican youth.

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