How Young Conservatives Can Stomach the 2012 Election

There’s no sugar-coating it.  It’s been a rough couple of weeks for conservatives.

Like many younger conservatives, I endured tough electoral losses in 2008 and 2012 while residing deep within a liberal bubble (academia and Washington, D.C., respectively), where the onslaught of gloating “I told you so” remarks and gleefully offered post-mortems of conservatism were as plentiful as they were painful.

However, it’s really not as bad for the GOP as it seems.  Three important points to remember going forward come to mind.

By /// November 19, 2012

Memo to Liberals: FEMA is Already “Privatized”

Sensing a rare opportunity in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to make the usually unpopular case for big government, liberals jumped at the chance to criticize Mitt Romney’s views of the federal government’s role in disaster management (I won’t bother preaching about how they are “politicizing a tragedy”).

But what these opportunistic liberals don’t realize is that Romney’s reasoned comments about disaster management are more in line with the truth than they realize.

All the fuss is about a year-old statement Romney made in response to a Republican primary debate question on whether emergency management functions should be returned to the states:

By /// November 2, 2012

Mr. President: 2008 called, it wants its platform back

On Tuesday, with less than two weeks before Election Day, The Obama campaign released a sleek, 20-page “plan” for President Obama’s second term in office.

The plan’s highlights: cutting taxes for the middle class, repealing the Bush tax cuts, slashing the federal deficit, reducing college costs, supporting job-creation, reigning in healthcare expenses, and promoting energy independence.   If those all sound familiar, it’s because the Obama campaign published a similar pamphlet, although much more substantive and much less picturesque, back in 2008. (Mr. President – 2008 called, it wants its platform back – Zing!)  It’s almost like the past four years never happened!

Although Obama relentlessly hounded Republican nominee Mitt Romney during the three Presidential debates over a lack of “details” to back up his long-standing policy proposals, Obama’s “Plan for Jobs & Middle-Class Security,” conveniently introduced immediately following the final debate so that it’s not subject to direct challenge from Romney, is noticeably short on details.

By /// October 24, 2012

President Obama rewrites history with “Act of Terror” reference to Libya

**UPDATE: Per a CNN interview post-debate, moderator Candy Crowley has essentially admitted that she was incorrect in supporting Obama’s statement during the debate in which he claimed he called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” the next morning in the Rose Garden. See below for full update.** In the Presidential debate Tuesday, Republican presidential… Read Article ›

By /// October 17, 2012

Supreme Court Likely to Overturn Use of Racial Discrimination in College Admissions

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case in which the Court appears poised to overturn prior precedent allowing the limited use of race in college and graduate-school admissions decisions.

The Court last ruled on the issue in a pair of 2003 decisions which examined the admissions practices at the University of Michigan. In those opinions, the Court held that colleges may make limited use of racial preferences in order to promote what the Court called the “educational benefits of a diverse student body.”

By /// October 10, 2012

Are Military Voters Being Disenfranchised in 2012?

The watchdog group Military Voter Protection Project reports that the number of 2012 absentee ballot requests by military voters has dropped dramatically since the 2008 election.

Several crucial swing states with large military populations have seen particularly dramatic reductions in requests – Virginia and Ohio ballot requests are both down 70 percent from 2008 and Florida has seen a 46 percent reduction. And thanks to our Pentagon and Department of Justice, our federal government could have a hand in this sad reality.

By /// October 3, 2012

New York Times: Obama’s Failure to Establish Personal Relationships Hurts America

In a front-page article Tuesday morning, The New York Times identified what American and foreign diplomats view as President Obama’s biggest foreign policy failing: personal relationships.  The Times reports:

“The tensions between Mr. Obama and the Gulf states, both American and Arab diplomats say, derive from an Obama character trait: he has not built many personal relationships with foreign leaders. “He’s not good with personal relationships; that’s not what interests him,” said one United States diplomat. “But in the Middle East, those relationships are essential. The lack of them deprives D.C. of the ability to influence leadership decisions.”

Obama’s personal relationship problem isn’t limited to the foreign policy arena.  Journalist Bob Woodward, who wrote an extensive expose on Obama’s bungled handling of the 2011 federal debt ceiling showdown, offered a jarringly similar critique: Obama has no personal relationships with Congressional leaders of either party (according to Woodward, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also shut Obama out of the debt-ceiling talks).

By /// September 27, 2012

Three Reasons Romney’s “47 Percent Comments” Could Help His Campaign

Almost immediately after a liberal blog posted a secretly filmed video of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments, the media began its predictable hyperventilation over yet another alleged “gaffe” committed by the candidate.

Contrary to the conventional media wisdom, there are at least three ways the so-called gaffe may actually help Romney’s struggling campaign:

1)  The Media is Inadvertently Focusing on a Real Election Issue

For the first time in what feels like weeks, the media is bringing attention to a fundamental campaign issue instead of asinine matters like tax returns, convention speeches, and irrelevant candidate misstatements.

By /// September 19, 2012