Posted on 06/15/2013 10:03:57 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
BOZEMAN – As a 19-year-old who thinks capitalism and free markets have a natural appeal to young people, Charlie Kirk has launched his own organizing group to bring them into the conservative fold.
But Kirk says the Republican Party and free-market candidates are blowing it with youthful voters, by failing to reach out to them and ceding the organizational battleground to the forces of Obama and the left.
“We need to do an honest autopsy of what happened to the Republicans in 2012,” he told Montana Republicans on Saturday at the party’s annual state convention in Bozeman. “The other side had behavioral modeling, what I like to call the 22nd Century campaign. It was unbelievable what they were able to do.”
Superior organization
Members of the GOP audience in Bozeman audibly gasped as Kirk told the tale of two acquaintances who he thought were “potential young Republicans,” but were swayed by the other side’s superior organization.
One was a female fan of pop singer Katy Perry. The woman obtained tickets to a Perry concert after agreeing to march in a gay pride parade last year. The marchers-concert goers also had to give their contact information to an Obama campaign group.
“She went from being uninvolved in March and being a Katy Perry fan to being one of the top community organizers in Chicago for Barack Obama,” Kirk said.
The other was a Latino high school classmate from Colombia, who had talked about his support of a less intrusive government and free markets.
But when the classmate returned to school after summer last year, he was wearing a T-shirt from MoveOn.org, a prominent liberal advocacy group.
Kirk said MoveOn.Org had had a booth outside the ceremony where the classmate and his family became American citizens, spoken to them in Spanish, and invited them to community events. The friend had become an organizer for the group.
“Now, why didn’t any of the organizations on the right have a booth at that swearing-in ceremony?” Kirk said. “There was nothing from our side of the aisle. Those were two young people who were potential young Republicans, who were both scooped up by the machine that the left built.”
Turning Point USA
Kirk, who graduated from high school in the Chicago area last year, said these and other such instances helped push him to found Turning Point USA, a nonprofit group trying to educate young people about the benefits of free markets, capitalism and entrepreneurship.
In an interview Saturday, Kirk said he founded Turning Point USA in part after becoming frustrated with the Young Republicans, whom he labeled as “too bureaucratic” and unwilling to try new approaches.
Turning Point USA’s website offers a mix of student columns, videos, events and the “student debt clock,” which shows students’ share of the national debt. While Kirk is the founder of the youth-centered site, the group has several adult advisers.
Kirk also has launched himself into the world of political punditry, appearing as a guest on national news shows, commenting about the youth vote, and speaking to conservative-leaning groups around the country.
Kirk came to Montana at the invitation of several Republicans who’ve been feuding with party hard-liners, arguing the state GOP needs to appeal to more than just doctrinaire conservatives.
Kirk said he talks to groups about how they can “better brand” capitalism and free markets for young people: “Young people want to be free. They want to be able to make their own decisions. They like to enjoy liberty.”
As for local Republican parties and groups, Kirk suggested they not turn their backs on libertarians or other subsets of the right, and that libertarians – social and economic – should be talking to conservatives about where they can seek common ground.
During the 2012 campaign, Barack Obama’s reelection team had an underappreciated asset: Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt. He helped recruit talent, choose technology, and coach the campaign manager, Jim Messina, on the finer points of leading a large organization.
“On election night he was in our boiler room in Chicago,” says David Plouffe, then a senior White House adviser. Schmidt had a particular affinity for a group of engineers and statisticians tucked away beneath a disco ball in a darkened corner of the office known as “the Cave.” The data analytics team, led by 30-year-old Dan Wagner, is credited with producing Obama’s surprising 5 million-vote margin of victory.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-30/googles-eric-schmidt-invests-in-obamas-big-data-brains
Ah ha ha ha ha...
Isn’t it a real downer that others can actually come to a thread and express what the term “Free Market Capitalism” means to them, despite the fact it will cause you to wet yourself?
Yawn...
Oh I see the problem. You can only remember back one year.
Well, I’m sorry about your case.
Poor guy. That’s all you could come up with. Kindof pathetic actually.
I almost feel sorry for you
I simply enjoy pointing-out boneheaded comments.
I simply enjoy pointing-out boneheaded comments.
Well here, I’m always here to help...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:1rudeboy/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change
Now, you are grasping at straws. Figures.
LOL
The GOP is nothing more than a branch of the DNC. Voters are blowing it by keeping the GOP in existence at all... we need a true Conservative party to go up against the DNC/GOP merged party.
Help me! A free-market capitalist told me that another free-market capitalist (and economist) understands basic human behavior! LOL, indeed.
LOL
Thank you, lrudeboy. I was searching for the proper response. Yours was better than mine would have.
Again, not a revolutionary concept—Friedman sums it up even better in the quote I provided in comment #52.
Yeah, we could act like them - but who wants to act like a lowlife liberal? It’ll be more fun to expose them - lift up the rock - let everyone see what’s under it.. soon..
Neither do I, but we have to try and persuade these kids the conservative way is the best way just like their “cool” peers brainwash them with emotional liberal traps; we cannot, cannot stop trying to spread the word.
Even kids in my own family got wobbly for awhile after leaving home and needed an occasional conservative bootcamp refresher from time to time. Until they start working full time, most have no clue what the progressive ideals cost them, we have to keep talking to these kids.
I teed off on you the other day for saying this. I shouldn't have. I think you've got a point in there somewhere, but as I said the other day, the Free Market Capitalism of today isn't quite the same as it was 25-30 years ago.
This kid is doing something good, and I should have acknowledged that more than I did.
I thought back on this today while I was out, and wanted to mention it to you.
As for me, I'm involved in capitalist/"anti"-capitalist flamewars nearly every day, it seems. Some of it probably spilled-over from another thread where you were not involved. That, and I'm brusque by nature . . . .
Globalist!
“Reagan was also able to articulate Conservative Principles in a manner that connected and registered with the Average Person. Reagan sold the benefits of Conservative Principles and painted a picture of an America that was proud to get up in the morning, go out, and win.
Find a candidate who can do that and you win.”
Reagan would have been crushed today. Sorry, completely different era back then even though it seems not too long ago.
Voted for the man in ‘84 but current culture, education, media, values are so polar opposite today there is no way a true, God fearing, moral conservative will win the job as President.
It will take a violent turn of events to go back to some semblance of decency in this Country and very few want the remedy or could stomach it.
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