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Identifying and supporting young conservative leaders is an important part of building a majority that can win again. I will highlight the work of some young people who have already established themselves as leaders, starting with a young man who runs one of the largest youth organizations in America.
Charlie Smith is the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), which has grown to 203,319 members nationally under his leadership. There are over 1,800 College Republican chapters and they are present in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Smith was elected Chairman in July 2007. During his two-year term, he has revamped the CRNC website, started a blog on the CRNC website, launched a new online social mobilization tool, raised more money than his predecessors and broken recruitment records.
Smith, who graduated from the University of Denver in 2007, served as the University of Denver College Republican Chair and Colorado State Chair before assuming his current position. Throughout his leadership in College Republicans, Smith has worked to adapt new technology to political campaigns. For example, he launched a pilot program involving text messaging for recruiting purposes while serving as State Chair, which he has now implemented nationally.
I asked Smith some questions about his work.
1. What have been your biggest accomplishments as CRNC Chair thus far?
“There are three big things we have been proud of. First, a few years before we came into office, there had been a scandal with a direct mail company. It didn’t have a huge impact outside of the organization, but it dominated things within the organization for years. To people in the CRNC that were involved at the time, it was an indictment on the integrity of the future of the Republican Party that something like this was happening in our organization. We wanted to correct it because it was the right thing to do. There was no process in place to prevent it from happening again. We put in some amendments to the constitution that stipulated how contracts have to go through a process before they are approved. Cleaning all this up restored a lot of confidence in the leadership of the CRNC.
Second, we recruited 142,000 new members with fewer field representatives than in years past, so we have had a substantial increase in the number of people recruited and amount of activism per field representative.
Third, technology is something we put a lot of emphasis on. When we took over the organization, it had not been technologically updated in a long time. Our field representatives were recruiting with pen and paper. We wanted the process to be digitized. One of the problems was that you would get 1,000 people on a list and couldn’t read the names. The quality of information was important to us. We wanted to fix this. We build a system called STORM (Student Tools for Online Republican Mobilization), which we will be rebranding as MyCR within the month. STORM did two things for us. It gave us a database. There had been no national membership for College Republicans. We finally digitized the whole process. The other side of it is being able to utilize the power of social mobilization and social networking. Of course we have all seen the rise of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and this election cycle saw those tools start to be used as political tools instead of just for social networking and meeting friends. Especially with our generation, people are starting to use social networking and peer to peer contacts as primary means to make decisions. We saw this as being the wave of future political communication. People in our generation spend less time watching TV than they do on the internet. The internet is where they will find information and make decisions. This is where we have to be active, as an organization, a party and a movement to get our message out there and provide an opportunity for these people to be active should they find our message attractive.”
2. What should the Republican Party be doing to reach out to young voters in the short-term?
“The Republican Party should be doing three things. First, building up the technological infrastructure so when we have the right message, we can disseminate it quickly. The Obama campaign understood the power of new forms of communication and that is something the Republican Party needs to understand. Second, getting the message right. Young people do not view the Republicans as a realistic alternative to what the Democrats offer, so that is why we are losing 2 to 1. We need to take a stand on the stimulus bill to get that brand back. I think the small government economic approach is where we really win with young voters. Third, changing the culture of the party. Many of Barack Obama’s top staffers were 20 and 30 years old. It is time to bring up new blood through party, both as candidates, insider campaign operatives and regular activists. The Obama campaign made young people feel welcome when they walked in the door. They were given jobs with responsibilities and goals. That is something that is missing in our party. We need to open the door for young people to become more involved.”
3. What should the Republican Party be doing to win young voters in the long-term?
“Invest in some really good research about young people. There is not much out there about what young people look for in terms of ideology and messaging. We need to figure out what those things are. Our generation is not lost yet.”
Smith has appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and MSNBC and has been named as one of CNN’s Young People Who Rock. After his term ends in June, he hopes to go to law school.
surumita // Feb 10, 2009 at 12:44 am
o attract young voters, the Republicans need to get over their racism, homophobia, sexism, and seriously need to stop harping on anti-abortion stances. It’s so flagrantly hypocritical to suggest that abortion is evil (and “pro-life”) when the majority of Republicans also believe in the death penalty, are pro-war, are against a minimum wage that can support a family of four (i.e. a “living wage”), and are against investing in superior education facilities and teachers for our children (meaning classrooms of no more than 20 students, highly paid teacher- which make the job more competitive and desirable) and other such policies.
Yes, I am a democrat, but I’d suggest ya’ll listen to my concerns about the Republican party because I am the kind of person you are trying to get onto your side.
Instead, of listening, however, I suspect that most Republicans reading this will disregard my post with contempt. Instead of listening, I suppose that the few Republicans who agree or respond with respect will be told they are “wusses” (as was unequivocally stated by a Republican when speaking about bipartisanship). Instead of listening to this post, I suspect that most Republicans will start spending their own money and campaigning against their own moderate “reasonable” Republicans who help to craft this stimulus package (Snowe, Collins and Spector).
I am just fascinated by Republicans, I must admit.
Stewardship // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:09 am
How about restoring the party’s great conservation tradition, that’s been missing for the past 25 years. College aged voters have no clue that Republican Presidents gave us Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the EPA, the ESA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Air Act….and on and on and on. They may know, through history books, that Teddy Roosevelt protected more land than any other president, but they don’t know that President Reagan led the global negotiations to ban ozone damaging chemicals; or that George W. Bush instituted a cap and trade program to limit emissions that cause acid rain.
Environmental protection is a huge concern for young voters. If the GOP continues down the same path it’s been on for the past two decades, we may lose an entire generational voting block.
sinz54 // Feb 11, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Surumita: In fact, I happen to agree with you that the hard-right bent of the GOP on social issues like abortion and especially pre-marital sex (which you didn’t even mention) are hurting the GOP’s chances with the young. Young people will not like a political party that behaves like a bunch of aging moral scolds. As for your other comments: The minimum wage is the basic cause behind the 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. They’re here, because they’re willing to work for sub-minimum wages. Law enforcement approaches to this problem will work as well as the law enforcement attempts to stop illicit drugs coming in across that same border. Get rid of the minimum wage and you get rid of the illegal immigrants.
surumita // Feb 11, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Sinz54: Actually, you are wrong about the reason why people are coming to work in the US. They are coming to work primarily because our agricultural policies, supporting big ag at all costs (which is very contrary to the theoretical conservative ideal of capitalism by allowing the markets actually work for themselves) have completely gutted the Mexican agricultural life. Mexican peasants cannot afford to farm because of U.S, cheap flour and corn products. We inadvertently caused this problem through our own good intentions. We can fix it again by no longer supporting massive wheat and corn fields and instead supporting small, organic farms. We could partner with Mexico on this one and really get something done. I happen to work with undocumented workers in the US and believe me, almost all of them would love to return to Mexico if they could make a living there. They do not really like the dominant culture of the US “ruining” their kids. But they can’t make a living there. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Not only would changing our ag policy help, but by improving our trade agreements so that we do not trade with any other country that does not have at least the same minimum employee and environmental protections that we do. This would also encourage better working conditions and higher wages for people in Mexico, further decreasing the need to flock here.
Oh and then I almost forgot our “war on drugs,” which again, inadvertently has increased violence in Mexico (especially against women) and people are just not safe.
I am not suggesting that the US is the big evil country and Mexico is the poor victim. The Mexican government has a lot to take responsibility for as well. But really, we need to take responsibility for OUR part of the problem.
And finally, the undocumented workers in the US are only following the paths followed by your own ancestors. And when YOUR people came here, there were others that talked the same trash about whoever your people are. Every cycle of immigration to the US has witnessed the exact same cycle of fear, ignorance and finally, acceptance that is demonstrated when the issue of immigration comes up today.
I also agree with Stewardship’s comments, below. When I first moved to Portland, OR I was stunned by the fact that the fabulous urban growth boundary, the state parks, and the public transportation system were all supported strongly and implemented by Tom McCall, a centrist Republican. What on earth has happened to Republicans that they have come to no longer support things like this?