CR Nation

Ashley Todd is a CRNC field representative from Texas. The story yesterday was that Ashley had been attacked outside Pittsburgh and had a “B” carved into her face.

Now, Pittsburgh police say that Ashley confessed to making up the story and will face charges.

So what is the real story? What really happened to Ashley in Bloomfield, Pa?

Update II: The CRNC has contacted CR Nation to comment on the story.

Communications Director Ashley Barbera: “When Ms. Todd initially contacted us claiming to have been attacked our first reaction was obviously to be concerned for her safety. We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit. Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions.”

Executive Director Ethan Eilon: “We have terminated her effective today. Obviously, we had know idea she was making this story up.”

Update: Daily Kos is having a field day with this story. Comments look like this:

Collage Republicans are terroristsSeriously she is a CR?

Collage Republicans are domestic terrorists. THe group once lead by Jack Abramoff had Links to RENMO Via he white south african governement and to the Sandanistas and to Pinochet (Abramoff and cronies were real nasty). They also believed in agitprop. They were set up to counter the radical left. And engaged in direct action in the US.

I think College Republicans should have to go
back to high school, and those who can’t “rethink” go back to middle school.

More typical of College Republicans…
not all are douchebags, of course, but they do seem to attract more per capita than most orgs.

A video put together by the PA CRNC field reps.

Ashley Barbera shares the good news in a press release to CR Nation:

(Washington, DC) – With nineteen days remaining until Election Day, the College Republican National Committee announced the success to-date of their 2008 field program, which recruited over 100,000 new members in six weeks. On August 27th, the CRNC deployed 50 highly trained field representatives to battleground states coast-to-coast to recruit and mobilize college students to turn out to vote on November 4 and elect Republican candidates up and down the ballot.

Nationally, the 50 field reps have:

RECRUITED 100,795 new College Republicans.

REGISTERED 18,122 new College Republicans to vote.

CONTACTED over 250,000 voters so far.

The 250,000+ voter contacts have come from a series of national Get-out-the-Vote efforts, in which College Republicans have gathered across the country to contact tens of thousands of voters in a single day through phone calls and knocking on doors. The CRNC has another national GOTV event this Saturday, and plans to contact over 100,000 voters in battleground states across the country in a single day.

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, the youth vote is not lost to Republicans,” said National Chairman Charlie Smith, “and our field program’s overwhelming success so far using innovative recruitment tactics both in the field and online, is testament to that fact.”

As part of the field rep program, the CRNC has scheduled three Ramp-Up Events, the second of which was this past Saturday.

A Ramp-Up Event is a one-day volunteer mobilization and voter contact push planned by the field reps and overseen by the CRNC, the purpose of which get out the vote for Republican candidates.

According to a press release sent out by the CRNC, this past Saturday “College Republicans gathered in groups around the country…to participate in a nationwide Get-out-the-Vote effort for Republican candidates. The college volunteers made 90,163 phone calls and knocked on 30,127 doors in a single day.

In light of the event, CRNC Chairman Charlie Smith had this to say:

This effort proves that all the hype about youth support for Obama and the Democratic Party is extremely exaggerated. College students across America are excited about the candidacies of Senator McCain, Governor Palin, and other Republican candidates…

This article from the Las Vegas Sun describes what one CRNC field rep endured to recruit at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas.

Ben Carpenter’s weapons in the battle for the young vote include GOP-themed Frisbees and bottle-opener key chains, and he handed out as many of the freebies as he could at UNLV this week.

The 24-year-old field representative for the College Republicans National Committee arrived on campus Tuesday morning following a 450-mile drive from Carson City. He had spent the night in his sleeping bag in the bed of his green pickup truck on the shoulder of a highway near Pahrump.

If you have other good field rep stories, e-mail crnation@gmail.com.