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College Republicans’ Problem With Young Voters Disclosed, Addressed

by Emily Yavitch - San Diego State University on June 5, 2013

My liberal friends are always posting clever, politically related pictures, quotes and memes on social media.

For example, they were among the tens of thousands of people across the nation who changed their Facebook profile picture to red-colored equal signs when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on same-sex marriage in late March.

Where were College Republicans with an official and clever little icon to post in support of traditional marriage? Nowhere to be found.

So I changed my profile picture to that of a man and a woman, which sparked quite a dialogue. How cool would it have been if that were more widespread?

This week, the College Republican National Committee released a postmortem on what went wrong with the youth vote in the November election, during which “President Barack Obama won 5 million more votes than Gov. Mitt Romney among voters under the age of 30 … enough to ensure his re-election.”

To earn more youth votes to the Republican ticket come 2016, the 95-page report cites numerous ideas and strategies, among them improved social media campaigns.

Gee, you think?!

I know that people my age use their smartphones much more than “at least once a week,” and nearly everybody uses various apps/texting “multiple times per day,” as the report stated.

It seemed odd the notion was startling to College Republican leaders.

I’m no College Republican crusader. I’m a 21-year-old English and theater major at San Diego State University who may or may not still be listed on the College Republican’s membership roster.

But I’m on their side, and while some of the report’s advice is obvious and should already have been undertaken with earnest, on the positive side – it’s a good start.

The strategies show at least College Republicans are doing something, instead of just giving up and accepting labels put on us by Democrats.

The report used focus groups, surveys, and looked at studies to gather its intel and advise students how to address such hot-topics as abortion, immigration, health care and the military.

But the larger issue is image, the rhetoric used by Republicans. Neither resonates with young people, the report said.

We cannot be content to concede labels like “caring” or “open-minded” to the Democrats just because they want us to.

“It is not that young voters are enamored of the Democratic Party,” according to the report. “They simply dislike the Republican Party more. . … Young ‘winnable’ Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard ‘Republican Party.’ The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

In my opinion, we have to work based off of our own brand. Meaning, we shouldn’t argue why we aren’t racist or homophobic, because that essentially validates Democratic posturing.

Instead, we have to explain why we are intelligent, helpful, hardworking.

Definitely making better use of Facebook and Twitter is a good idea. The report also suggested identifying younger, hip candidates. Sure, why not?

Ultimately, however, we need to articulate our positions better, and not just College Republicans – all Republicans, politicians included.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Obama’s oratory skills are largely what got him elected.

On our side, people like Dennis Prager and Michael Medved have ways of clearly explaining issues. Everything is brought down to simple, intelligent discussions. Why can’t our politicians speak more like that, instead of talking down to people?

Take the health care issue. At San Diego State, it is not required to take an economics class to earn a bachelor’s degree. I assume that is similar elsewhere. So the idea that a small business owner would have to cut employees in order to stay afloat in the face of Obamacare is not inherently understood.

We heard some of that during the Obamacare debate, but not enough. The national conversation centered on Obamacare’s unconstitutionality.

Like the report says, a bad message doesn’t earn votes or support.

“Economic growth, tackling long-term challenges, and focusing on opportunity trumped narratives around the constitution, liberty, and American values,” it stated. “While those things are not unimportant, this generation is looking for outcomes – particularly economic outcomes – that are going to make them better off.”

In the end, the report essentially offered five basic ideas, stating: focus on the economic issues that affect young people  today: education, the cost of health care, unemployment; capture the brand attributes of intelligence, hard work, and responsibility; don’t concede “caring” and “open-minded” to the left; fix the debt and cut spending, but recognize that messages about “big government” are the least effective  way to win this battle of ideas with young voters; and go where young voters are and give them something to share.

It’s a good start.

Fix contributor Emily Yavitch is a student at San Diego State University.

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Congress Works To Exempt Itself, Staffers From Obamacare

by Oliver Hudson - Brown University on May 31, 2013

It turns out the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare, is not so affordable after all, prompting high-ranking members of Congress to secretly meet with the White House to carve out exemptions for themselves and their staffers.

News of these secret negotiations surfaced a month ago, and they should remain a concern today.

Congressional staffers from both parties seek an exemption from Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges because purchasing plans from these exchanges – which lawmakers and their employees are mandated to do under the law – could hike their monthly health insurance costs by as much as $1,000 or more.

So Democrat lawmakers hoist this monstrosity of Obamacare on America – and now they want to opt out? Small business owners face financial loss, too – does that entitle them to an exemption?

Democrats do not have the right to secretly revise a law they publically supported because they and their staff face fiscal hardship. And Republicans, if they know what’s good for them, shouldn’t go along with this, either.

The details of these secret negotiations between the White House and high-ranking members of Congress came out in an April 24 article in Politico. The part of Obamacare they aim to exempt themselves from is the insurance exchanges, or marketplaces for low- and middle-class citizens, to buy health insurance.

The Affordable Care Act states members of Congress and their staff may only have health insurance created by Obamacare or offered by an Obamacare exchange:

“The only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).”

Those close to the secret talks claim the law could lead to a “brain drain” in government, since highly talented staffers may leave as a result of higher health insurance costs, according to Politico, a nonpartisan political news organization.

“If the two sides agree on a fix, leadership is discussing attaching it to a must-pass bill, like the government-funding resolution or legislation to hike the nation’s debt limit,” it reported.

But some beltway observers were quick to dismiss the negotiations as a big misunderstanding, and blamed Politico for hyping the issue.

Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, for example, wrote that under the provision, the “federal government can’t make its normal contribution to the insurance premiums of congressional staffers.”

“No one is discussing ‘exempting’ congressional staffers from Obamacare. They’re discussing creating some method through which the federal government can keep making its current contribution to the health insurance of congressional staffers,” Klein wrote. “It’s an effort to fix a drafting error that prevents the federal government from paying into insurance exchanges on behalf of congressional staffers who got caught up in a political controversy.”

That sounds like a lot of typical D.C. doublespeak.

We like the take of Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, who is dead set against the proposal.

“I have no problems with Congress being under the same guidelines,” Burr told Politico. “I think if this is going to be a disaster — which I think it’s going to be — we ought to enjoy it together with our constituents.”

Fix contributor Oliver Hudson is a student at Brown University.

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IMAGE: Donkey Hotey/Flickr

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Acclaimed Professor Bashes Obama Over Economic Policies

by College Fix Staff on May 6, 2013

Via Newsmax TV:

President Barack Obama’s economic policies are proving disastrous for the country, says Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland.

“The three horses in the apocalypse for the American economy are Obama’s energy policies, . . . excessive business regulation . . . and Obamacare,” he tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.

The energy policy is “shutting down drilling in the eastern Gulf and off the coast of the Atlantic and Pacific,” Morici says. The amount of  regulation that affects the economy has tripled under Obama, raising the cost of  capital and keeping people from creating jobs, he says.

As for the Affordable Care Act, it’s “a definite negative drag on the economy,”  Morici states. …

“No president could have conceived a better program for shutting down jobs  creation, collaring growth, and setting America on the path to decline than Mr. Obama’s team,” he states. “It’s an absolute tragedy what’s happening to the United States.”

Read more.

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Opinion: Religious Objectors Must Respond To Obama’s Latest Abortion Coverage Proposal

by College Fix Staff on February 22, 2013

Notre Dame senior Bob Burkett writes for the Irish Rover:

In response to the accommodations put forth by the Obama administration, groups including the New York Times, American Civil Liberties Union and NARAL Prochoice America have provided their support and praise. A Washington Post columnist even went so far as to write that the compromise “ought to be taken by the nation’s Catholic bishops as the victory it is.”

Some legal scholars are inclined to disagree. Gerard V. Bradley, Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, remarked on the complexities of the rules.

“One can say with confidence the following: 1) religious hospitals are, as before, not exempt ‘religious employers’; 2) religious charities are very likely not exempt either, unless they are run out of a church or are very tightly integrated with a church. So, a parish or even a diocese’s Saint Vincent De Paul operations would probably be an exempt ‘religious employer,’ whereas Catholic Charities would not be; 3) the new proposal may (or may not) make it more likely that parish grade schools are exempt ‘religious employers.’”

With regard to Catholic higher education, Bradley argued that “it is certain that Catholic colleges and universities do not qualify as exempt ‘religious employers’…the proposal adds some additional layering to the earlier attempts to insulate the schools, but nothing of decisive moral significance is included.”

Other critics of the plan include religious liberty law firms such as the Becket Fund and the Alliance Defending Freedom and political analysts such as Yuval Levin.

Levin wrote that the plan, “like the versions that have preceded it, betrays a complete lack of understanding of both religious liberty and religious conscience…the government has forced a needless and completely avoidable confrontation and has knowingly put many religious believes in an impossible situation.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has yet to release a detailed statement, noting that it “welcome[d] the opportunity to study the proposed regulations closely” and “look[ed] forward to issuing a more detailed statement later.”

The plan has been additionally susceptible to critique by for-profit organizations that also have conscientious objections to the HHS Mandate,  like Hobby Lobby and Autocam Corporation.

Matthew Schmitz of First Things wrote in defense of such organizations, “the Obama administration believes that conscientious objections to contraception should prevail in the non-profit sector, but not in for-profit corporations. Why? Do employees of non-profits need contraception less? Do conscience claims of their leaders matter more? Why are tax-exempt organizations granted more rights than those which pay taxes?”

Ronald J. Colombo, Professor of Law at Hofstra University, believes that the distinction between non-profit and for-profit organizations is a “convenient rule of thumb, but when it comes to constitutional matters such as freedom of religion it’s not appropriate. There are for-profit corporations that are much more religious than non-profits.”

Colombo argued that current state and federal laws have “impede[d] the ability of business enterprises to adopt, pursue, and maintain distinctively religious personae.” Without the ability for businesses to display or conform to a distinctly religious character, “religious expression and practice is restricted to the private quarters of one’s home,” a condition that entails that “religious freedom does not truly and fully exist.”

Schmitz also argued that the for-profit sector could at least receive the same application of the accommodation issued in the non-profit sector. He writes, “contraceptives will be ‘seamlessly’ provided to employees of non-profits in a way that does not impinge on the consciences of employers. Say, though, that the administration’s claims are made in good faith: Why not provide the same ‘seamless’ accommodations even to for-profit corporations?”

Despite the administration’s accommodations, it is evident that there are a number of religious, non-profit and for-profit objectors. Having rejected the proposal, it is up to the American bishops and other conscientious objectors to respond. The problem remains: How are the objectors to respond in a way that can bring about a greater protection of their religious liberty?

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia had this to say.

“One of the issues America’s bishops now face is how best to respond to an HHS mandate that remains unnecessary, coercive and gravely flawed. In the weeks ahead the bishops of our country, myself included, will need both prudence and courage – the kind of courage that gives prudence spine and results in right action, whatever the cost. Please pray that God guides our discussion.”

Read the full article here.

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Obama’s Assault on Religious Liberty Continues

by Nathan Harden - Fix Editor on January 2, 2013

The College Fix has previously reported on president Obama’s efforts to force Catholic and other religious universities to provide contraceptives under Obamacare, contrary to the teachings of Catholic doctrine.

Obama his attorney general Eric Holder have made it clear that they do not believe that constitution protects religious institutions from acting against their own religious teachings when it comes to upholding the provisions of Obama’s health care reform bill.

In a similar case, now winding through federal courts, the Obama administration is determined to force the nationwide arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, which is owned by a family of evangelical Christians, to pay for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

CNS News reports:

In a legal argument formally presented in federal court in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration is claiming that the First Amendment—which expressly denies the government the authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion—nonetheless allows it to force Christians to directly violate their religious beliefs even on a matter that involves the life and death of innocent human beings.

Because federal judges—including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.

Religious liberty and liberty of conscience can no longer be taken for granted in Obama’s America.

Read the fulls story at CNS News. (Via Fox Nation)

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Top Ten Best Higher Education Stories of 2012

by Jennifer Kabbany - Associate Editor on December 17, 2012

Day in and day out, week after week and month after month, The College Fix offers a variety of articles that highlight the extreme leftist bias that has hijacked higher education across America and put social progressivism above academics.

Unfortunately, there’s never a shortage of examples.

Yet once in a while, someone somewhere makes the right choice at a university near you. They take a stand for common sense. Defend what’s right. Fight a ludicrous policy.

‘Tis the season to shine the spotlight on some of the good that’s come from colleges this year, a few stories proving not everyone has acquiesced to the mainstream scholarly status quo, that the battle for the hearts and minds of the nation’s youth is far from settled.

The College Fix presents the 2012 Top Ten most positive stories coming out of colleges this year, in no particular order:

Christian Colleges Fight Obamacare Abortion Mandate

Several Christian colleges took a stand in court this year against a new government mandate, part of the recently approved health care law referred to as “Obamacare,” that requires them to violate their religious belief and provide employees drugs that induce abortions, among other forms of birth control. The fight is far from over against the so-called “contraception mandate.” The various legal battles are winding their way through appellate courts.

ROTC Allowed to Return to Harvard University

In March, the headline in the Harvard Crimson student newspaper declared: “After 43 Years, Army Welcomed in Harvard Yard Once More.” It was the latest step to reverse the more-than-40-year exclusion of the military from Harvard Yard, it reported. And in our opinion, long overdue. Universities across America should follow suit and embrace young people who want to serve their country. The sanctimonious anti-militarism of the liberal elite who run institutions such as Harvard must end.

Book Exposes Porn and Political Correctness at Yale

Speaking of the Ivy League liberal elite and its twisted priorities and agendas, Nathan Harden, editor of The College Fix, took a stand against his alma mater and the smut it sanctions as part of Yale University’s “Sex Week” and other, similar campus activities and classroom lessons. “Sex and God at Yale,” published in August, made eyes pop and stomachs churn across the nation as people read what passes for an alleged world-class education. But if not for students such as Harden, who showed chutzpah in exposing such matters, Yale’s intellectual whorehouse tendencies might have continued unabated. As it stands, sex week will reportedly be toned down and shortened to just a weekend from now on.

What Apathy? College Voters Descend on Polls in Droves

Long gone are the days when college kids could care less about politics. Nowadays, they decide races, at least according to the 2012 presidential election results. Thanks to the youth vote, President Barack Obama earned four more years. Regardless of which way they’re voting and how people feel about it, the fact that young people are headed to the polls on Election Day shows they are engaged in what’s important and understand the value of Democracy in America. To this day, brave men and women in uniform fight and die for ideals represented in voter booths. Whether young people vote Republican or Democrat, they’re voting. Period.

University Backs Professor in Battle with Gay Blogger

All too often, the academic freedom door swings only one way – left. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that after a sociology professor’s study found that children of same-sex parents are more likely to be depressed or on welfare than kids raised by heterosexual couples, he was lambasted by many. But when the professor was accused of scientific misconduct, that’s when criticisms went too far. Surprisingly and thankfully, the University of Texas actually came to his defense. All too often, administrators bend and break to liberal pressures. It’s nice to see them stand up to them once in a while.

UCLA Halts its ‘Dream University’ Plans

UCLA’s blueprints to create a schooling program for students in the country illegally – with tuition costs far less than what mainstream students pay – was axed in September. The “National Dream University” plans provided further dramatic evidence that UCLA faculty feel free to use their publicly funded academic positions for political purposes, and thankfully Dream University was cancelled after a very hostile public reaction. Unfortunately, UCLA officials also left the door open to revive the project, saying “… any agreements would require a comprehensive academic and financial plan that has approval from appropriate parties.” We’ll keep an eye out on this one.

It’s The End of the University (As We Know It), and We Feel Fine

The modern-day structure of universities is evolving dramatically and drastically because of technology, and that’s a good thing. This year, the online college education genre exploded, with big name universities and small-town ones all jumping on the bandwagon. The College Fix’s editor Nathan Harden examined the trend in a 5,200-word feature article published this month in The American Interest. The virtualization of the college experience has vast implications, but as Harden put it: “If our goal is educating as many students as possible, as well as possible, as affordably as possible, then the end of the university as we know it is nothing to fear. Indeed, it’s something to celebrate.”

Arizona Outlaws Discrimination Against Conservative Professors

Yes, it has gotten to that point where laws are needed to protect the minority pool of conservative professors from all sorts of backlash and discrimination. Lawmakers in Arizona did just that. HB 2770 took effect in the state this year. It forbids public universities or community colleges from making employment decisions based on a faculty member’s political or religious beliefs, Arizona Central reported. The law was prompted by a lawmaker’s talks with professors, who told him they were forced to “mask their religious or political views to protect their jobs and promotional opportunities,” according to WORLD on Campus, which called the bill the first “affirmative action (legislation) protecting university and community college professors from viewpoint discrimination.”

High Court Agrees to Hear Affirmative Action Case

In February, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in which a white, female plaintiff argues affirmative action policies were used to discriminate against her. Now the fate of affirmative action in college admissions will once again be decided by the highest court in the land. In the months following the court’s decision to weigh in on the matter, the subject of affirmative action and its merits and pitfalls were thrust into the national spotlight, reigniting debate on the darling policy of college leftists. During oral arguments in October, justices voiced concerns about using race in admissions policies, offering hope affirmative action may be curtailed, if not reversed. A decision is expected in 2013.

Tufts University Reinstates Christian Ministry

All year long, many headlines have proclaimed the news that universities across the nation either refuse to allow Christian or conservative student groups to form, or that administrators want to force those groups to accept student leaders who don’t believe in Christian or conservative values. The examples are numerous and widespread. Nevermind religious freedom or freedom of association. However, there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. This month, Tufts University took a stand against the trend. WORLD on Campus reports that “like several other private colleges, Tufts has an ‘all comers’ policy that requires official student organizations to be open to all students for both membership and leadership, regardless of beliefs. But in reviewing a discrimination complaint … the Tufts Committee on Student Life decided unanimously the policy should not apply to leaders of religious groups.” Amen.

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