I've never written a diary before but here I go. I was going to post this earlier but I was busy. I was
asked to create a diary with a catchy title. Please be kind and recommend.
On November 2, 2004, I was with several people with my local College Democrats watching the returns come in. Throughout the last two months of the Kerry campaign, we held meetings, debated the College Republicans and Campus Greens, marched in a local Halloween parade with Kerry signs and protested Vice President Cheney's visit to the campus. I even wrote an editorial to the college newspaper, denouncing President Bush's foreign policies in fostering future terrorism and failing to solve the root causes of terror. On November 2, after we voted, we gathered at a table near a big-screen television and, twenty feet away across from us was the table for the College Republicans.
Like George S. Patton in the movie Patton, watching Moroccan troops in parade formation, I commented to the College Democrats vice-president on how I marveled at the disciplined College Republicans, their organization, precision and professionalism. I was envious.
For example, at the debate in October 2004, they wore suits and ties, carried business cards and regurgitated their talking points from memory; in contrast, the College Democrats were disorganized, confused and lacking. (And for the record, in December 2004, I briefly ran for secretary of the group but lost.) Although we Democrats lost on that rainy night in America, I believe that had we Democrats been better organized from the bottom up, a Democrat would be sitting in the Oval Office right now.
I was living in a dorm last year and the RA - resident advisor - was an chubby African-American kid around my age. During the election, he was leaning on the fence politically and I handed him a Kerry leaflet with his positions on issues. On election morning on November 3, I caught up with him and he told me he had voted for Bush but couldn't articulate a reason for doing so. South Park Republicans concern and scare me.
The importance of the College Democrats may seem like small potatoes and not appear important to the Kos community in the light of the Republican culture of corruption and the continuing war in Iraq. However, as we prepare for the National Organizing Kickoff, I believe the weaknesses of the College Democrats nationally represent failures of Democratic leadership in youth outreach as well as highlight the role of organizations and feeding chum to the grassroots sharks. In September, an article in the Washington Times showed that the GOP had some 6 million email addresses. As I type this, conservatives are preparing a new generation of evangelical leaders in young people starting with the College Republicans and conservatives; an example would be "Generation Joshua".
Various (and infamous) modern Republicans got their start with the College Republicans such as:
Here's a short history lesson. For the past forty years, the conservatives built up a machine - Hillary Clinton called it the "vast right wing conspiracy" - following the defeat of conservative senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in the 1964 election. The '64 election was a harbinger of things to come with the Republicans winning several southern states, mostly with conservatives emboldened with the backlash against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Democratic support for desegregation. On the night he signed the Civil Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson said to his aide, Bill Moyers, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come." The New Deal coalition built by Franklin Roosevelt began to fracture when southern whites began to vote Republican, labor unions declined, society changed and the northern states lost power to southern and western states - New York and Pennsylvania, for example, lost electoral votes while southern and western states like Texas and California gained votes. Meanwhile, labor unions declined in influence while conservative New Deal whites became Republican, particularly after Ronald Reagan created "Reagan Democrats"; they are now Republicans.
The vast right wing machine is fueled by vast sums of corporate money (look up Richard Mellon Scaife), local grassroots organizations and conservative ideological followers in those organizations that slowly turned the tide against the Democrats and moderate old-school "Rockefeller Republicans". One example would be the 2004 Senate primary race between old school Arlen Specter and conservative Pat Toomey. These ideological followers attacked "liberalism" using "moral issues" like abortion, civil rights and women's rights while rising in public office from city councilman to even senator (see Rick Santorum). These ideological followers regularly attack/scapegoat people who support a mythical "gay agenda", Hollywood, the "liberal elite" and, more importantly, "liberal academia" - professors and students who lean to the left. Listen to Rush Limbaugh attack women as "feminazis" and "abortionists" while Michael Savage attack Democrats with the subtle title of his book "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder". And don't get me started with Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. In a way, my vision for the College Democrats would be the grunts in an ongoing "culture war" - forcefully and firmly debunking the Republican memes and talking points.
In 2005, the College Republican National Committee ran an election for president; it dissolved into a brutal slugfest between Paul Gouley and Michael Davidson; this battle was covered by the various news outlets from the Washington Post to Campus Progress. In September, the New Republic covered the election. (For the article itself with a conservative twist, read "Save the GOP" blog analysis here.)
Although Gouley won, the battle represents ominous trends for Democratic Party - the rise of organized and aggressive young Republican leadership -trained in the hardball political tactics of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater - against the relatively lackluster College Democrats. For example, Jack Abramoff said in 1983:
Abramoff was soon elected chairman of the College Republican National Committee with the campaign being managed by Grover Norquist and aided by Ralph E. Reed, Jr.. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left," Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report, "Our job is to remove them from power permanently". Abramoff "changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before," notes the CNRC.
At the CRNC in the 1980s, Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation, many of whom now have gone on to graduate to significant national influence in American politics and business. Some of these long-standing alliances are the subject of various federal investigations into Abramoff and his political and business dealings.
Prior to 2003, the College Republicans were dependent on a stipend of around $150,000 from the Republican National Committee; since then, they have raised over $17 million when the College Republicans became a 527 group independent of the RNC. In contrast, the College Democrats of America remain tied to the Democratic National Committee with an unpaid president and a small and insufficient budget to fight nationally. I believe the disorganization of the College Democrats represents a deeper problem in the Democratic Party: disorganization and poor leadership at lower levels in contrast to a well organized Republican/conservative menace.
True, we have our own money men, such as George Soros, and our own access to partisan media with blogs and the Air America radio network. However, I beliee more must be done. I believe that to truly spread Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy", I call for the immediate reform and overhaul of the College Democrats of America. Our purpose in expanding the College Democrats would be to promote our message, create new leadership and sow the seeds for a stronger, better America.
I propose training sessions for national College Democratic leadership as well as debates with College Republicans or have people write editorials to school papers. I propose College Democratic leaders appearing on radio and television shows? (Some colleges, like the one I used to go to, have their own student-run radio and television stations.) I propose registration drives and volunteers armed with iPods/PDAs/BlackBerries/Palm pilots to show people campaign ads in dorms. I propose having local party activists on Segway scooters riding around campus handing out flyers promoting Democratic candidates and working with the local community to volunteer on GOTV things like busing people to polling places. I also propose holding meetups for, say, Democracy for America, on campus in lecture halls, auditoriums and classrooms at nighttime.
To borrow from Bill Bradley earlier this year in the New York Times, the purpose of the College Democrats and other organizations would be to "further the party's ideological and political goals". The College Democrats should be doing the same thing for us - finding and training talent and future leadership, helping us grow the bench everywhere and spread/expand the 50-state strategy for years to come.
We Democrats must think for the long term since the Republicans are not simply trying to win battles; they are trying to win the war over the Democratic Party for decades starting with the College Republicans. And unless we all do something now to organize and fight, the Democratic Party will be the minority party for decades to come. We must assemble a progressive agenda for the lower levels fueled by money, ideas, passion and hope. We need to train the next generation of leaders and to take back this country, we must start from the ground up. I think this is how we start. Let's get to work.