The Notre Dame College Republicans signed on to a statement opposing Barack Obama delivering the Spring 2009 commencement address citing the institution’s Catholic conscience and a Republican Pro-Life pledge:

Notre Dame being the preeminent Catholic institution and with a majority Catholic membership, the club will pursue to be a unique brand of College Republicans unlike many of its counterparts. We are Our Lady’s College Republicans whose political pursuits are informed by a Catholic conscience and in respect to the Church’s call to faithful citizenship. With that, we will continue to be committed to the student coalition responding to the President’s selection.

To be clear, the College Republicans signed onto the Student Coalition not as a religious organization. Among the core platforms of the Republican Party is the pro-life cause. In its 2004 platform “A Safer World and More Hopeful America,” the Party reaffirmed its stance on promoting adoption & abstinence over abortion and the passing of the Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. [Read More]

h/t CR Nation

GOP Falling Off The New Media Bandwagon

by Leigh Wolf

The Republican Party learned a hard lesson in technology during the 2008 Presidential election. Realizing Obama obliterated the Grand Old Party by using all the shiny new technology he could get his hands on, our party was left desperately searching for our own plan.

The College Republicans have been effectively using new media since 2004. I recall many conversations with a multitude of Republicans where I practically begged them to use Facebook, or the now passé MySpace. I was told time and again that these were just passing fads and that “all the tech stuff” was unproven and therefore not worth the GOP’s time. Republicans were completely unaware that these “passing fads” were exactly the opposite. Young voters get their news, TV and radio from the internet. They access politics almost exclusively on the web. It’s impossible to reach large numbers of young voters through old school methods.

While there were several token attempts at using new media, by-and-large we instead stuck with only the old school: precinct-walking, phone banking, etc. It is incredibly important to compliment pre-existing and successful campaign methods with the new, web-based techniques. It wasn’t until the numbers came in from the 2008 election that the Republican Party realized the error of its ways. Obama had beaten us in the 18-25 demographic by nearly 3-1. College Republicans know that our message is capable of resonating with many young voters. However, when some in our party refuse to accept the reality of a complete paradigm shift in modern communication, it’s no wonder the Democrats took us out back behind the tool shed. Now we have a party frantically searching for our answer to the Obama campaign strategy.
[Read more →]

From the SFSU Gator GOP blog:

The College Republicans at SFSU held an anti-hamas event on campus. They had a petition for students to sign in opposition to Hamas. Playing off the Bush shoe throwing incident, students who opposed hamas were encouraged to throw a shoe at the Hamas flag. Radical leftists and Hamas supporters rallied against the event and became violent. TWO students were taken into custody and charged for attacking the College Republicans.

No one was seriously injured.

h/t Leigh Wolf, SFSU College Republicans

Pro-Hamas Student 1: “Why is Zionism racism?”

Pro-Hamas Student 2: “Because apparently God is a real estate agent, and he gives one tribe a piece of land for all eternity.”

I don’t know any supporters of Israel that believe this. But, Hamas believes that the “land of Palestine” (AKA the sovereign state of Israel) is an Islamic Waqf, loosely, a piece of land given to Islam by Allah for all eternity.

You can find the Hamas Charter here: The Covenant of The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS)

Some juicy snipets from the Charter of the group these SFSU students so proudly support:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. “

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

Recently we have been posting a lot about the California College Republican’s race. With those posts in mind, I’d like to talk about youth in the Republican party, and why GOP leaders feel comfortable letting the youth vote go to the Democrats, every time.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a major youth movement for Reagan, and, before the 60s, conservatives on college campuses were not the endangered species they are today. But since the youth of America decided not to trust anyone over 30 and “speak truth to power” (whatever that means), the GOP has decided to give up on us. Aaron Marks, founder of NexGenGOP, after grading the major RNC Chair candidates writes:

The lack of substantial and comprehensive plans for increasing the Republican Party’s appeal to young voters from the majority of the candidates for RNC Chair is rather frightening. Despite the fact that the surge in the percentage of the youth vote received by Barack Obama played a huge role in his victory, most of the RNC Chair candidates seem content to preserve the status quo — working with College Republicans, Young Republicans, and other existing young Republican groups and folks while failing to [reach out] to new young voters. If the Republican Party wants to win elections and be the party of the future, our next RNC Chair is going to have to do much better than that.

Marks is right, even though I support Michael Steele and not his candidate (which is besides the point), the GOP’s faliure to engage young voters only helps the stereotype that Republicans and conservatives are just old white dudes, that push “worn out dogmas,” as Obama said in his Inaugural address.

College Republicans on a state and national level spend most of their free time helping Republican candidates win elections, and they do a pretty good job, but, many of those same candidates fail to reciprocate. CRs don’t only need more funding, they need to know that their opinions matter to party leaders, and that the GOP recognizes that we, young conservatives, are the future of the party. Stronger support from Republican leaders will bolster the CR and YR movements, and make new young voters feel comfortable associating themselves with the party of Lincoln, Goldwater and Reagan. The ideas we believe in are not tired, “worn out dogmas,” but, the principles that make our country great. The GOP can be reinvigorated by the energy and innovation that young people bring to the party, and that our first principles are meant to inspire, if only they pay attention and let us take part.

-Featured on #TCOT Report, thanks #TCOT Report people!

Sources report that a second slate is about to announce in the California College Republican race. This new slate will be up against the more experienced and seasoned slate of Revolutionize CCR headed by Michael Antonopoulos. This surprising announcement could break up a long standing coalition of College Republicans in the state. The slate as TDR knows it so far is:

Ben Myers, Chair
Matthew Schenk, Co-Chair
Alvaro Day, Admin vice-chair
Misty Tienken, Treasurer
Ryan McNicholas, Executive Director
Sydney Hilario, Secretary
Marshall Roe, LA Regional Vice Chair
Brenna Miller, Southern Regional Vice Chair

Developing…

UPDATE: Late Night Jan. 18, TruthCaucus: CCR Fight, Fight, Fight

Jan. 19, CRNation: Rumor: 2nd Ticket Forming in CA

Jan. 19, CRNation Update: Blog: Second Ticket Set to Announce in CA

UPDATE: Jan. 21, Slate updated here Adam Ellison as Chair, Ben Myers Co-chair.

From Colorado Daily:

…

CU leaders last year announced plans to create a $9 million endowment to fund the Visiting Chair in Conservative Thought and Policy on the Boulder campus, which long has been derided as a liberal bastion.

…

“The entire concept of a Visiting Chair in Conservative Thought and Policy politicizes academics in a way that is contrary to the university’s mission,” senior Jesse Jensen, president of the College Democrats, said Monday. “By endowing a chair in one specific political ideology, we are not promoting intellectual diversity — we are tokenizing a point of view that should be presented in all classes on political thought.”

At CU Boulder, 94% of Professors are registered Democrats. So, bringing on a conservative clearly goes against the university’s mission; leftist indoctrination, intolerance, and incompetence.

Sure a token conservative may not be the solution for Boulder’s ideologically monolithic faculty, but it’s a start. Going to the zoo is an important educational experience, even though there are only a few lions and thousands of human visitors.

By Michael Stokes Paulsen in the Wall Street Journal:

You would think people would learn. The recount in the contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for a seat in the U.S. Senate isn’t just embarrassing. It is unconstitutional.

This is Florida 2000 all over again, but with colder weather. Like that fiasco, Minnesota’s muck of a process violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, the controlling Supreme Court decision is none other than Bush v. Gore.

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should “undervotes” count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about “overvotes” (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent. [Read More]

And this, Bethany Dorobiala,Chairwoman of Minnesota College Republicans is on the front line of the recount battle:

Bethany Dorobiala of Woodbury, a Minnesota College Republicans leader, said it is important voters know about the double-counted vote issue. Republicans started a Web site and want Minnesotans to sign on to their suit.

“Being a part of this lawsuit … is an incredible thing to be a part of to really help to solidify and preserve the (voting) process,” she said.

(h/t CR Nation)

h/t Leigh Wolf via Facebook