CR Nation

With about 25 State Chairs and the entire CRNC Executive Board, the bomb-shell announcement of the new administration’s first conference call with the National Board on Thursday was that the CRNC has cut STORM.

On the call, the announcement was made by CRNC Treasurer Brand Kroeger.

According to Mr. Kroeger, after reviewing the books and looking at STORM’s analytics, the CRNC could not justify continuing to pay for the database.

STORM was costing the CRNC upwards of $14,000 per month to maintain, but only generating a little over 100 hits in the same period.

Running the numbers, that means the CRNC was paying $140 per hit – an astounding amount.

Asking around, College Republican leaders seem pleased with the decision, and Mr. Howell’s budget cutting measures.

The CRNC will not be database-less for long. A new database is reportedly being built around the results of a survey of College Republicans conducted several months ago by the CRNC and the David All Group.

The call was also used to introduce Tommy Jardon, former Southern Regional Vice-Chairman, as CRNC Executive Director. In an email following the call, Mr. Jardon said,

As members of the Committee, I consider each and every one of you my “boss.” Please feel free to reach out to me with any comments, concerns, questions, or ideas you may have. I, Zach Howell our Chairman, the national officers, and the entire CRNC are resources at your disposal.

Additionally, we found out on the call that the CRNC Fall Board Meeting will be held November 20-22 at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando Studios in Orlando, FL.

For State Chairs, the CRNC will reportedly cover the hotel and two meals. This board meeting, however, will be the first in which ALL College Republicans are welcome.

To make it more economically feasible for non-State Chair College Republicans the CRNC has secured deeply discounted rates on hotels and other attractions in the Orlando area.

Lastly, the call was used to push efforts to get College Republicans to deploy to the upcoming gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.

Terence Grado, former NJ College Republican Chairman and current Northeast Regional Vice-Chairman, and current VA College Republican Chairwoman Kate Maxwell both talked about their respective states.

Mr. Howell is reportedly meeting with RGA Executive Director Nick Ayers to discuss how the College Republicans can best be of service.

As always, your thoughts?

Reports are that Ethan Eilon, Charlie Smith and Esther Clark recently had a meeting with WeTheCitizens concerning the direction of STORM over the next six (6) month period. WeTheCitizens is the company the CRNC contracted with to develop and maintain STORM.

Top State:

The Ohio Federation of College Republicans

Top Chapters:

Ohio State
Brigham Young University
Southern Methodist University

The Top Ten Individuals:

Greg Skidmore
Jeremy Hagen
Jason White
John Eick
Zack Blair
Ben Jacobson
Luke Beery
Kristen Sanocki
Ryan Wolf
Rachel Hassani

The top state won $2,500

Each of the top chapters won $500.

The top individuals each won a 16GB Ipod Nano.

In an e-mail, the CRNC recently announced a new STORM contest. The contest goes from today until the end of the month, Tuesday, September 30th, at midnight EDT. Under the contest:

The top 10 recruiters in the country will win a brand new iPod nano.

The top 5 chapters will earn a block grant of $500.

And the top state federation in the country will earn a block grant of $2,500.

Many comments have recently been made on this website concerning STORM, the field rep program (specifically the allocation of field reps) and the job – in general – the CRNC has been doing, Charlie, Ethan, Esther, Will, etc.

In response to those comments – many made anonymously – one reader, Jonathan Synder from Ohio, had this to say:

This anonymous bashing of the CRNC’s Field Program is not helping anything or solving any problems. To those of you complaining about states that are not Presidential or Senate targets getting reps, have you forgotten that we take CRs from those places in the last two weeks, especially the last 100 hours, and deploy them to battleground states? Having a rep there to make sure recruitment goes well is a good idea at worst, and there is nothing to say that some of these reps won’t be moved around once the election draws closer.

We have to embrace the growing use of technology in politics, especially when it comes to collecting data. Even if Barack Obama’s 3 AM text message was anti-climactic, his campaign was able to gather 2.5 to 3 million cell phone numbers. Lists like that help greatly to win campaigns, in addition to people on the ground. You can have a huge list of CRs and other volunteers for a campaign, but you have to use technology like Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, e-mail, and even STORM to turn those volunteers out.

Facebook is obviously superior to STORM as a Soc Net, but this is not the goal of STORM. With Facebook, there is no data integrity or control. With STORM, each State Federation and Chapter can maintain live lists and provide another method for reaching its members. For example, for our upcoming McCain rally in Dayton (The Veep Announcement), the OCRF was able to directly message another 1500 college students signed up on STORM and turnout a good chunk of CRs to the event that we otherwise would not have reached. This stuff has potential for a huge impact, and it is the medium of now, not just of the future. There is a reason why John McCain’s two most talked about commercials were not even on TV and Barack Obama is using text messages as a key communications component of his campaign. If the political operative establishment is embracing such tools, then we as the youth arm of the GOP are far behind the curve if we fail to do so, too!

Colorado is also one of the top targets for Democrats this year, as evidenced by the hard sell of having the DNC there this cycle. Sending CO a few reps is by no means unwarranted or a bad move. There have to be priorities, and someone has to stand up and make the tough decisions here. It is good to see a group of leaders that are stepping up and getting things done. If any of you have actually communicated with them since taking office last summer, you would know how differently the office runs on a day to day basis, and how much improved and more effective it now is. I would have to say that the CR brand is on the rebound, as is the effectiveness with which funds are utilized.

Very simply, I agree. This is not necessarily the opinion of every writer at CR Nation, but it is my own. How do you feel?