“Where have all the College Republicans gone?”
Posted by cr nation | Posted in CRNC, College Democrats | Posted on 13-10-2008
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The brouhaha started by the College Democrats of America co-chair just won’t stop. The New York College Democrats take their shot at College Republicans today on their blog:
As President of the NY College Democrats, I am proud to say that we have a booming organization in the Empire State. A quick google search of NY College Dems yields tons of blog entries and our amazing website which our New Media Director JF has brilliantly put together with tons of pics and links to our 50+ chapters across the state. Meanwhile the NY College Republicans are nowhere to be found. It is difficult to find their webiste and they dont blog at all. They don’t even get any mention in the NY media.
This past weekend we sent over 150 students from NY into central PA to canvass for Obama. We were located in 4 different offices: Bloomsburg, Hazelton, Stroudsburg and Wilkes- Barre and not a single college republican was to be found either from NY, PA or any other state.
Much has been made of an op-ed post by College Democrats of America National Council Vice Chair Lee Drake who talked about the high budget of the national college republicans and their lack of ground troops helping McCain. I couldn’t agree more with him. The College Republicans do indeed have a significant fundraising advantage over us but the College Democrats have a huge advantage when it comes to mobilizing our troops for Obama on the ground across the country.
In fact, College Democrats make up much of that fundraising gap by working with the Obama campaign and the DCCC, DSCC to help pay for transportation costs for campaign invasions into battleground states and regions to get Democrats elected.
Earlier this fall I challenged the NYS College Republican chairman to a debate and they rejected the challenge, claiming that they wanted to focus on campaigning. While that’s perfectly reasonable, I have yet to see or hear college republicans in NY campaigning for any race in large numbers.
Perhaps nationally they are hiding because they think McCain is a horrible candidate who doesn’t adequately represent young voters.
This logic makes perfect sense. According to the author, Brian Young, the College Republicans have a website that is tough to find, don’t have a blog, and turned down a debate request, which naturally means that College Republicans across the country are “hiding” because of our “horrible candidate.” I didn’t quite follow that. Logic doesn’t appear to be Mr. Young’s forte.
I wonder why the NY College Dems collapse right after every presidential year and then reform every 4 years while the CR’s are a sustained organization that work on midterm and odd year elections…
(No one tell the CDems that there are competitive races in NY State…)
POSTED TO COLLEGE DEMS BLOG:
I’m going to be a bit bold hear and guess that maybe….just maybe….you’re taking your job WAY too seriously. The reason the College Dems fail on campus time and time again is because they do not offer a REAL anti-war platform, which is what most left leaning students are looking for. Groups like the international socialist organization, world can’t wait: drive out the bush regime and other radical groups continue to grow on campus while college democrats keep getting weaker….even during an election year. I’m sure you have a few clubs that have grown and i bet you’ll try to keep the focus on those clubs. But the reality is that you can’t defend your own party to anti-war activists because the entire party made the biggest flip-flop of the last 8 years. The Republican party is consistent in their support of our mission in Iraq. Students looking to oppose the war in iraq through their activism quickly realize that the dems position is just a thinly veiled and only slightly re-worked version of the Republican position. How can you possibly tell students you’re anti-war when your party continues to fund the war?
Secondly, the democratic party has one huge advantage over the Republican party. For years labor unions and other organized labor have turned out in droves, paid and unpaid to walk precincts and make phone calls for democratic candidates all over the country. It’s a built in volunteer base that gets the job done for the Democrats. They don’t need you. You’re a novelty that’s nice to keep around for the cameras. “Oh, look at the youth vote making phone calls….how cute.” You are not an essential part of the Democratic get out the vote effort and you never will be. College Republicans are viewed by party leadership as one of three groups that consistently move voters to the polls for Republican candidates. They invest heavily in our organization to ensure that students have the resources they need to motivate volunteers and get out the vote.
As the saying goes, Money talks and shit walks. The College Republicans are screaming while the College Democrats are sprinting.
I am very proud of my President and the job we have been doing in New York State.
With only a quarter of our universities reporting, we have registered over 10,000 new voters. We will have 200 students accross the state working on Congressional and State Senate races October 24-26, aswell as another 50 in Ohio to closeout the race there (since PA is a double-digit spread).
I dont see why the College Republicans are so cranky. You are sitting on a ton of money, use it to get your members mobilized. It gets tiring walking those Republican districts hearing abotu how everyone is voting you gusy out of office alone.
Padavan, Maltese, Hannon, and all the rest of them could use your help. It’s getting boring seeing Republicans standing around with their head in the sand, come on out and challenge us on the campaign trail
Hmmm – interesting that the California College Republicans (Leigh) are talking smack via the internet to a College Democrat on the other side of the country. Maybe it’s because you know if you were talking shit to College Democrats in CA you would be ignored cause y’all have such a weak organization in comparison to the powerhouse that is the California College Democrats(and California Young Democrats).
Leigh – you should focus less on your blogging and more on trying to find a couple hundred new recruits so students in California college’s actually take your organization serious!