Mr. President, We Expect More From You

Crossposted at crnc.org

Abc News reports that President Obama called Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics board, last night to apologize for comparing his "notoriously bad bowling skills" to the Special Olympics. Not surprisingly, Shriver accepted the President's apology, calling it "very moving," and noted that the President will soon be entertaining Special Olympians at the White House. Standard gaffe procedure.

Time out here: did anybody actually think that the President was malicious in last night's megagaffe?? Let's take a second, regardless of your opinion on the President, and ask--could anyone actually entertain the thought that the President of the United States would intentionally demean the mentally challenged? Obviously, absolutely not.

But, that's not the point, now is it? And, once again, the media has missed what really matters.

To quote Toby Ziegler's insightful comment to Will Bailey before Bartlett's second inaugural address on The West Wing (yes, I'm a nerd, leave me alone), "The Dow plummets because of casual conversations with this man." Herein lies the point: For a number of reasons, the presidency demands discretion. This president has not provided it.

It demeans the Office to talk about how "cool" the jacket they gave him on Air Force One was, and it's beneath the Presidency to make derogatory comments about those with special needs. Although our former President was known to make an oddball comment or two, he was always compassionate, never offending such a special group of people with such a rash choice of words.

President Obama needs to learn, teleprompter excluded, that what he says matters. Regardless of apologies, post-hoc comments, or visits to the White House, the President of the United States will be on record for the remainder of history, in the White House archives and elsewhere, comparing his bowling skills to the Special Olympics (which, if it mattters, has a pretty amazing bowling program). Mr. Obama, grow up to the office that the people, however misguided, gave you.

As If They Had Never Known

America is buzzing today--coming from a thousand different angles, but I believe that today, and yesterday... and tomorrow... may signal the first pangs of buyers remorse for those who chose to elect President Obama.

Like most news, the story you get on AIGate (cute, right? came up with it myself) depends on the source. If you're listening to the Administration, Congressional Dems, or, even Congressional Republicans, the entire situation is a populist outrage-- someone's at fault, and they're going to pay. As a matter of common sense, failed corporations shouldn't be doling out bonuses, especially on the government's dime, right? Here is the situation as I see it:

1. The Democratic majority is focusing their anger at AIG, trying to figure out how they can conjure up the biggest amount of anti-corporation (read: anti-Republican) populism to aid them in their 2010 races, many of which aren't as safe as they looked four months ago.

2. Congressional Republicans see this as the first opportunity to cast the Administration and Congressional majority as sleeping on the job. In the past, they've had to contend with the shadow of President Bush, but, this time, this one is all Barry, Nancy, and Harry.

3. The Administration is caught in a state of disarray, trying to figure out what went wrong, where it went wrong, and how to fix it. The President has accepted blame for the situation trying to assert servant leadership and has, of late, adopted a Truman-esque "buck stops here" rhetorical style. In the end, though, Geithner is seeing the political fallout of what was actually a sound legal and philosophical decision to avoid canceling standing contracts by exempting them from the no-bonus rule.

There's been a ton written about this mess, so I don't want to be redundant, but I do want to comment on something very important that's been conspicuously missing throughout all of the literature up until this point: perspective.

At this point, I'm done with details and I'm not going to come to a conclusion on who is right in this (although you can guess who I'm siding with). What I will do, however, is point out that this entire scenario is merely an externality of the disastrous decisions that we, as a nation, have made to cast away capitalism and subsidize sub-standard companies on the taxpayer's dime. The term "to big to fail" has been thrown around a lot as a political standard-bearer for the concept that the market could not survive the collapse of many of these firms. I would suggest, far from being the first to suggest it, that we haven't given the market the opportunity to do its job.

Countless businesses, public and private, around the nation have failed in our time, whether being swallowed up by bigger firms, restructuring, undergoing massive downsizing, or even meeting their ultimate demise because of poor business practices, corruption, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What makes AIG any different? Without exception, these failures drive innovation, give opportunity to those who can do better, and make our economy more competitive.

Since September, we have fallen victim as a nation to alarmist rhetoric that tells us that there is no other option than to continue to subsidize failed corporations rather than watch the market run its course, even ignoring options like Chapter 11 designed to soften the impact of failure and help companies get back on their feet by addressing the problems that got them there. Why are we surprised, then, that AIG is... paying their employees? Not to mention the fact that the Washington Post reports that the credit default swap crew is long gone, leaving people who had nothing to with the mess What did we think would happen? Like most things, it's a lot more complicated than it looks at surface level. The real lesson is that, by leaving AIG alone, we could have avoided even the pretense of wasting taxpayer money and leave them to spending shareholder money, the way that private business is supposed to work.

Don't think that this is the end. In the coming months, I predict that we will continue to see the externalities of corporate subsidization and out of control spending, and that it will turn out to be more of a pain in our President's ass than he could have ever predicted. Maybe, it will clue him in to stop the spending.

What is more likely, though, is that the American people will start to realize that they're not getting what they paid for.

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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Why Can't We Be Friends

The topic may have been beaten to death, but it's worth discussing again, specifically as we inch towards the RNC election that will determine our electoral fates:

What is with the influx of post-apocalyptic "Republican" groups post 11/4?

As #Rebuild the Party has gotten the lion's share of the RNC candidates to adopt their excellent platform, many other groups have formed in our electoral aftermath, some struggling to find any bit of relevance. Don't get me wrong, as a conservative, I believe in the division of labor, but many of these groups exist just to inflate the egos of their founders.

It's been said time and time again, but the solution to the problem is not to divide into multiple groups, but to come together and find solutions to our party's problems. Look at #Rebuild, by directly engaging themselves in the existing process, they have been able to accomplish more than anyone has in the past two months by convincing the RNC candidates to unite behind a common platform.

I had a discussion with someone from one of these so-called renewal groups yesterday, who failed to understand the basic concepts of rebuilding our movement. We don't need to be "New Republicans," we need to find new ways to articulate our existing conservative message.