The left and the right have been engaged lately in a battle of policies, ideas and . . . name-calling over health care. Each side has been eager to prove that the other is engaged in “Astro-Turfing,” a clever name used to imply fake or “orchestrated” grassroots organization.

The Left accuses the anti-public option crowd of being bought and paid for by Big Pharma, while the Tea Party crowds are obviously contrived by Big Oil (according to the Left). Meanwhile, the Right has pointed to political groups such as Progress Now, MoveOn.org, and ACORN as examples of liberal “astro-turf” organizations. The evidence includes their nice, printed signs, their mass emails, as well as their buses bringing supporters to Obama’s town hall meeting.

So who is right and who is wrong when it comes to labeling the other side as ‘astro-turf?’

Well, the Constitutional Reporter staff attended events on both sides to get a sense of their different strategies. Here’s what we saw:

The Right

The right is legitimately afraid of ObamaCare, which has made it more excited and engaged in politics that at any point in recent memory. You can see their activity in the conservative blogosphere, but there is no money trail. People are making signs, going to town halls, and calling their congressmen because they’re authentically frustrated with the legislation not because the RNC or some other organization is paying them to do it.

And what’s even more interesting, the vast majority of people who attend the protests have not been connected to any GOP leaders. Having attended several Lincoln Day dinners, GOP breakfast clubs, etc., this year, our staff was surprised to see many new faces. These are people who didn’t even know that there were local breakfast clubs on ObamaCare and other bad administration policies until this bill came along.

The Left

Here’s where it gets interesting. Bloggers from The Constitutional Reporter sat in at an important activism meeting held by some Democrat organizers. They were looking to hire some field reps to go out and spread the word about Cap and Trade. Here is their game plan:

The Environmental Defense Fund has hired a national political consulting firm called Field Works. They want to lobby the ‘blue dog’ Democratic US Senators to convince them to vote ‘yes’ on Cap and Trade.

Field Works is hiring 12 people at $90/day. For 40 hours a week, their job is to talk to people about supporting Cap and Trade to protect the environment. Each of these 12 people will be responsible for finding 12 other people, per day, to make a phone call directly to Colorado Senator Michael Bennet’s office to urge him to support Cap and Trade.

Additionally, each of those 12 field reps will be working to get 28 people, every day, to fill out a post card for Senator Bennet. Field Works is providing the cell phones and post cards as well as postage to support the effort. This campaign will run until October 2nd and will be conducted in six other states as well.

Now, if this isn’t “astro-turf” then what is it? Fertilizer?

Folks on the Right better be prepared for the well-oiled machine of the Left. If there was ever a time to call our U.S. Senators and tell them to oppose Cap and Trade or the public option, now is that time. Ask your Senators to support productive, free market solutions to health care and environmental problems instead of raising taxes and imposing costly regulations. Politicians need to hear from you because they’ll certainly be hearing from lobbyists and consultants on the left.

This article is a submission from the staff of TheConstitutionalReporter.com. It was originally posted on their blog.

In a tweet posted this past Wednesday, Allahpundit of HotAir.com wrote, “Whatever happens with health care now, [Obama] has really woken up the right online.” In one sense, he’s right. Every day the ObamaCare fiasco drags on, the right-wing blogosphere gets new inspiration, new ammunition, and new readers. It’s quickly becoming a golden age for conservative bloggers, who, after years of half-heartedly defending an increasingly lethargic Republican Party, are now finally on the offensive.

However, it’s important to realize that the GOP as a whole remains woefully behind the times when it comes to harnessing technology. Despite the notable contributions of a few individuals, the party seems reluctant to truly integrate new messaging techniques and social media into its operations. Until it does so, it will have a difficult time reaching voters – especially young voters – in an increasingly digital world.

It’s indisputable that a substantial amount of Barack Obama’s support in 2008 came from people that connected to him through the web. His team made a conscious effort to use social media tools to reach out to voters personally. So why isn’t the Republican Party trying to do the same?

It’s not a question of fundraising. The GOP has used the Internet effectively to raise money, sometimes in interesting and innovative ways, such as with last summer’s GOP Toolbar add-on for Firefox. But it seems as if the party has not yet realized the strength of social media and Web-based applications as a communication tool.

When they do decide to use the Web to make a point, they view the whole process through an outdated paradigm – the direct mail, mass-targeted commercial paradigm. In doing so, they rob themselves of a valuable opportunity to connect with voters on a personal level.

It’s a problem when prominent members of the Republican leadership don’t have blogs. What better means is there for politicians in Washington to communicate with individuals all around the country in their own voices than a regularly updated blog that encourages comments and discussion? It would behoove individuals like John Boehner and Eric Cantor to set up blogs, update them regularly, and respond to comments. It would both allow them to have a dialogue with voters and give the impression of greater responsiveness to citizens’ concerns. What’s the downside?

It would also benefit certain members in the leadership to take advantage of tools like podcasting. In 2007, Fred Thompson’s then-unofficial presidential campaign got a huge boost of support from his podcast, “The Fred Thompson Report.” Only three episodes in the series ran more than four minutes. Each installment allowed Fred to give a succinct take on a particular issue and let people know what he stood for. Thompson also used other forms of social media during this period, including a regularly updated blog and a series of well-received Web videos. Although his campaign ultimately fizzled in the fall, Fred’s use of technology to connect to voters helped him build strong grassroots support before he officially entered the race.

And even though many Republican leaders have their own Twitter feeds now, they’re still using them in very limited ways. I understand the desire to not say too much off the cuff – after all, we don’t want to end up looking like a bunch of Joe Bidens. But the whole point of social media tools is to enable communication and dialogue – in other words, to be social. Why have a Twitter feed if you’re not going to engage with the people who are following you? Otherwise, you’re just building the web equivalent of a fan club, and while that might look nice, it doesn’t really mean anything. The GOP leadership should be using its Twitter feeds to actually communicate with people, not just to deliver sound bites.

The digital efforts of individuals and bloggers during the ObamaCare debate have been nothing short of breathtaking, and maybe it’s appropriate that the online Republican Revolution has started at the grassroots level. But now it’s time for the party leadership to get on board. The digital age of politics in this country has begun, and until the GOP realizes that, we’ll all just be stuck here, dreaming of electric elephants.

Stefan Claypool is a recent graduate of Middlebury College.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s recent decision to postpone a final vote on health care reform until after the August recess should provide cautious hope to all Americans. This move was undoubtedly influenced by resistance from the 52-member Blue Dog coalition in the House, and the utter lack of a cohesive plan behind which Democrats can unite, not to mention CBO estimates that any of the bills currently under consideration will explode national deficits over the next 20 years. While this is certainly a small victory for the GOP, the battle to prevent government-run health care from taking hold in America is by no means over.

In 1994, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell passed up a seat on the Supreme Court to continue the fight for health care reform, but by fall that same year the insipid Senator from Maine had pronounced health care reform dead in the water. A devout partisan himself, Mitchell attributed the failure to the Republican minority who stubbornly prevented even the narrowest of reforms. This time around, the Democratic majority is swollen and if the GOP hopes to prevent this latest threat to American prosperity it will have to look beyond its own ranks for support.

Already the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs have begun to resist the public option and in doing so have catapulted themselves to the forefront of the policy debate. With seven votes on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Blue Dogs have some serious leverage. The main actors in this play are Mike Ross (AR), Bart Stupak (MI), Baron Hill (IN), Charlie Melancon (LA), Zack Space (OH), Bart Gordon (TN), and Jim Matheson (UT). Already these seven legislators have expressed serious opposition to a public health care option. Fostering that resistance should be a top GOP priority.

But what can conservatives do to reach out to moderate Democrats? For starters, they should combat the crisis mentality created by Democratic leaders and the idea that health care reform must necessarily be massive in scope. While the Obamacrats continue to whine about the small portion of the American people who don’t have health insurance — many of whom lack it for reasons that do not include the lack of a public option — Republicans can emphasize the parts of our current system that work while supporting incremental reforms. Flat out opposition to health care legislation will win the GOP no favors, but proposing moderate and carefully considered reform (such as the plan offered by Newt Gingrich) could help keep the Blue Dogs in opposition to Führer of the House Pelosi.

Although courting the Blue Dogs is necessary to defeating a government-run health care program, presenting pragmatic alternatives to such a program is equally important. For far too long, Republicans have allowed themselves to be unfairly cast as opponents of health care reform. What it really boils down to is image projection. Conservatives have crafted successful health-care policy in the past only to have their glory stolen by the likes of Bill Clinton.

In 1996, then-chairwoman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, led the effort to secure passage of a bill that increased the portability of health insurance (a major concern in the mid-nineties and today). A year later a Republican majority in congress led a truly bi-partisan effort to reform Medicare and Medicaid. Signed by President Clinton in August of 1997, HR 2015 cut $112 billion in costs over five years and extended coverage to 3.4 million previously uncovered children. So, Republicans have successfully crafted health care policies in the past, and they have done so through incremental, cost-effective, and measurable steps, not through government takeovers or the creation of ponzi-esque entitlement programs.

Despite such success, Republicans remain woefully inept at communicating the merits of their record to the public, and this failure has contributed to the perception that GOP lawmakers are apathetic towards health care reform. To be honest, there might be a kernel of truth to that perception.

Just after the 2008 presidential election, I sat in a stuffy lecture hall at Bowdoin College to hear a lecture by Dana Professor of Government Peter Lawler. Lawler, who previously advised both George W. Bush and John McCain in the field of bioethics, cracked jokes targeted at the hopey-changey liberals in the room. When the discussion turned to health care, Lawler quipped that McCain had a great health-care plan, he just never bothered to read it. Such apathy will scuttle the Grand Old Party.

The burden of legislative restraint lies squarely on Republican shoulders. Conservatives cannot escape that fact. Statist-Progressive types who care not for the Constitution will continue to cough up unrealistic, ideologically-driven policies, and will continue to advertise them with false and lofty rhetoric. But through pragmatism and fresh ideas, conservatives can prevent the further expansion of our inefficient government. It wouldn’t hurt to send the Blue Dogs some flowers and chocolate either.

Steven Robinson, an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, is a regular contributor to The D.C. Writeup.

With President Obama’s approval ratings in freefall and his economically irresponsible health care plan on the brink of collapse, it’s awfully hard for Republicans not to feel good about themselves. Some Republicans are already talking about taking back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. But despite recent developments, I want to take this opportunity to offer this bit of advice to hopeful conservatives around the country:

Don’t get too excited just yet.

There are a lot of reasons to remain skeptical about the GOP’s chances of seizing power over the next couple of election cycles. I could write at length about the futility of taking polls three years out from the presidential election or the dangers of assuming that Obama’s popularity won’t rebound. But both of those things are out of Republicans’ hands. What I want to talk about is what can be controlled.

Just as Americans voted against Republicans in 2006 and 2008, it’s possible that they will vote against Democrats in 2010 and 2012. But a rejection of one party does not constitute an embrace of the other, and until Republicans give people a legitimate reason to vote for them, any electoral victories will be short-lived. The Republicans need a real message. More importantly, they need a real leader.

Think about it. Who is the leader of the Republican Party right now? Who speaks for center-right America? Is it Michael Steele? John Boehner? Mitch McConnell? Is it a former presidential candidate, such as Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee? Former governor Sarah Palin? Current governors Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty? Who is front-and-center, leading the party in opposition?

Ask eight different Republicans and you’ll get eight different answers. Some people will say that’s a good thing, that you need some variety in your leadership and that by having each of these people appeal to a different group, the party can be effective in ways that it otherwise couldn’t.

But to what end? What’s the ultimate goal we’re pursuing, the legislative agenda that we’re getting excited about? No one knows. The danger of being in the opposition party is that you begin to define yourself solely by opposition. That’s why we need a clear voice. We need a leader with a clear vision for this country, and we can’t afford to wait until 2012 for the presidential primaries to produce one. We need someone to step up now.

And that’s the bottom line: someone needs to step up. It doesn’t do anybody any good for the party’s best and brightest to be focused on becoming the leader of one particular interest group. That’s a primary strategy, a strategy based on the idea that if someone can consolidate enough support among a few specific cliques, they’ll be able to roll through a couple of primaries and build momentum. It’s also a system that gives rise to stale ideas and constrained thinking, and will ultimately prevent the eventual candidate — and the party — from achieving a truly broad appeal.

We need to break free of the segmented, regionalized thinking that is transforming the once-proud Reagan coalition into nothing more than a loosely affiliated group of special interests. We need to see the end of “The Southern Leader,” “The Business Leader,” “The Social Issues Leader,” and the start of “The Republican Leader.” We need to forcefully establish ourselves as a truly national party again, and in order to do that, we need someone to step up and lead the way, and until we have that leader who is willing and able to build a coalition of Republicans, who makes that his or her top priority, we will not be able to achieve any lasting political victories. We will continue to be locked in a cycle wherein our objectives are undermined by our inability to understand what we are fighting for. And we will drift in and out of power without ever accomplishing anything.

So this is my call, my challenge to Republican governors, congressmen, senators, candidates, and grassroots organizers across the country: step up. Put aside the desire to become the poster boy (or girl) for one small segment of the conservative movement and take up the cause of the movement itself. Until one of you does, until one of you is willing to reach out, offer a genuinely persuasive argument and become the de facto leader of the Republican Party, any and all of the GOP’s achievements will be fleeting.

So come on, people. Get to it.

Stefan Claypool, a graduate of Middlebury College, is a weekly contributor to The D.C. Writeup.

This week Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker distanced himself from the national Republican Party and former Republican Governor Mitt Romney by announcing that he supports gay marriage. Baker made his position crystal clear: “my brother’s gay, and he’s married, and he lives in Massachusetts, so I’m for it.”

Baker’s decision to position himself as a social liberal was welcome news to many in the Massachusetts GOP who believe that the national Republican Party’s fixation on cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage have hurt the party’s image with independent voters. In 2006, Massachusetts Republican Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei said that Romney’s “attempts to position himself in the Republican primary [have] highlighted a lot of social issues, and I think, quite frankly, that hurt Kerry Healey [in the 2006 gubernatorial race] and it also . . . blurred the differences that we’ve had with the national party.”

On the other hand, Baker’s support for gay marriage could disillusion many Bay State social conservatives — especially Catholics.

While the electoral implications of Baker’s position remain unknown, the decision of the would-be standard bearer of the Massachusetts GOP to stake out a position to the left of President Obama on gay marriage raises an important question: how big should the GOP’s tent be?

Few issues better highlight the tension between the conservative and libertarian forces within the Republican coalition as much as gay marriage. Conservatives emphasize the importance of social traditions and customs, while libertarians emphasize the virtues of individual liberty and freedom from government control. In most cases, these two ideologies complement each other. Ronald Reagan was able to build a conservative-libertarian coalition based on a shared commitment to lowering taxes, defeating communism and reducing the size of the federal government. But on gay marriage, these two ideologies come into conflict.

Fortunately, the Republican coalition has the advantage of another unifying force — something that conservatives and libertarians both support: the principle of federalism, or states’ rights. Conservatives and libertarians alike believe that the fifty states should act as independent policy laboratories where policymakers can experiment with new solutions to old problems. Gay marriage can be one of those social experiments. Where better to try it than in socially liberal Massachusetts?

One of the strengths of the Republican Party is its ability to embrace diverse opinions on a variety of issues while at the same time remaining united around core values like limited government and national defense. That’s why Charlie Baker can embrace gay marriage in Massachusetts, Texas Governor Rick Perry can favor traditional marriage in Texas, and the two of them can work together to oppose government-run healthcare, all in the same big tent.

George E. Bianchi, Jr. is a senior at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts studying history and education. He will be a regular contributor to the D.C. Writeup and will primarily be writing about the state of conservatism in New England.

How do college students feel about the Republican Party? Has this attitude changed in recent years? And what do college students like most — and least — about it?

These are all important questions. The rate of college attendance in America is steadily increasing. In 2005, nearly 39 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds had either completed college or enrolled in a degree-granting institution, and many voters’ political affiliations solidify while they are in college. College students are also unusually engaged in politics — both as campaign workers and as voters. Most importantly, the views of today’s college students will shape the identity of tomorrow’s Republican Party.

As anticipated, the students we surveyed seem to strongly dislike the Republican Party. Nevertheless, the results of our survey provide constructive ideas on how Republicans can start polishing their image to attract more college-educated voters.

The Four ‘E’s

The students we surveyed considered four political issues to be most important: the economy, education, energy and the environment — what we call the four ‘E’s.

That college students consider the economy one of the most important issues facing America should come as no surprise. The majority of students at Tulane and Yale said the economy was “highly important,” which makes sense — after four years and a substantial investment of time and money, students want to have both a degree and serious job prospects in hand. Unfortunately, most students do not think that the GOP is a competent steward of the economy. The Republican Party received “poor performance” ratings in this area.

The second ‘E’ is education. Yale students gave education the top spot in issue importance ranking and Tulane students said it was the second most important issue of the 25 issues surveyed. In the free-response sections, students expressed dissatisfaction with “No Child Left Behind,” a program considered by many to be a hallmark of the Republican Party. Others, however, noted their approval of Republican promotion of school choice through vouchers and charter programs.

National Defense, at Home and Abroad

The Republican Party did not lose the college vote in 2008 because of its foreign policies. The students we surveyed approved of the Republican Party’s positions on national security and military strength, and despite the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, they did not strongly disapprove of the Republicans’ foreign policy stances.

Social Issues

According to conventional wisdom, the GOP’s social conservatism alienates college students, who tend to be socially liberal. Our surveys reinforce this belief, but of the five social issues assessed (abortion, gay rights, religion, social values, scientific development), two in particular deserve the party’s immediate attention: gay rights and scientific development.

The students we surveyed almost unanimously disapproved of the GOP’s position on gay rights. Even self-identified Republicans don’t celebrate the party’s position on the issue. — Republicans at Tulane gave the Party its worst score (5 out of 10) on gay rights. The GOP’s stance on scientific development is slightly less reviled, but students rank it higher in importance than other social issues.

The results obtained from these surveys allow for a few firm conclusions, and we are hopeful that future surveys will reveal more about the college students’ attitudes toward the Republican Party.

Out of the 50 schools that will be surveyed for this project, five have been completed: Tulane, Yale, the George Washington University, University of California at Irvine, and the University of Texas at El Paso. The full data sets can be obtained by writing to Stephen.richer@gmail.com. Stephen Richer, a graduate of Tulane University and the University of Chicago, is a weekly contributor to The D.C. Writeup. Alexis Hamilton, who will begin law school at The University of Georgia this fall and is a former editorial assistant for American.com, contributed to this article.

If the GOP is looking for a political strategist with bold ideas to rejuvenate the party, they should look no further than Senator Harry Reid.

Yes, that’s right — Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In a news conference Wednesday, Reid urged Senate Republicans to join him and vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor next week. The Nevada senator warned the GOP that their party would face damaging political consequences if it opposed Sotomayor, who is expected to soon become the court’s first Hispanic justice.

“I just think that their voting against this good woman is going to treat them about the same way that they got treated as a result of their votes on immigration,” Reid said.

Of course the senator had his own Democratic interests in mind when he made that comment, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think Reid was a Republican operative in disguise. With his suggestion that Senate Republicans should vote for Sotomayor in order to avoid perpetuating the recent Republican snub of Hispanic voters, Reid gave the GOP some helpful advice — and God knows they could use it right about now.

Hispanics are both America’s largest minority group and its fastest growing one. The GOP will need Hispanic supporters in order to be electorally viable in the future — especially in the heavily-Hispanic Western states.

While President Bush was able to win 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, Republicans alienated much of the Hispanic electorate only two years later when they stepped up their attacks on the country’s rising population of illegal immigrants. Consequently, John McCain only managed to capture 31 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential election.

Opposing Sotomayor’s nomination — even if that opposition is for solely political reasons — will go down badly with Hispanics, who will likely interpret that opposition as a slight.

But politics aside, the move is pointless and has the potential to cause more harm than good. While Republicans want to exhibit their loyal opposition to President Obama, Sotomayor is all but confirmed, having already received the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 13-6. Next week, she will face the final vote in a Senate comprised of 58 Democrats and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats. Simply put, opposing Sotomayor is a lost cause.

I don’t personally support Sotomayor, but the numbers don’t lie. The GOP’s voter base is shrinking, in numbers and in diversity, and Republicans cannot afford to further alienate Hispanics. The stakes are especially high for the 2010 midterm elections in which Republicans must defend Senate seats in two states with large Hispanic populations: Arizona and Florida.

For now, the best Republicans can do reconcile with Hispanics is to heed Harry Reid’s advice and support the Supreme Court nominee they so strongly oppose.

Alex Katz, an undergraduate at Northwestern University, is a weekly contributor to The D.C. Writeup.

In their book Grand New Party, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam suggest that the Republican Party can win again if it focuses on “Wal-Mart” — that is, working class — voters. This demographic is indeed significant, but just as important to the Republican Party’s future success is the other type of “Wal-Mart Republican”: the business-values Republican.

What does Wal-Mart represent? Superficially, it could be described as a big box store where you can find nearly any item you want for a reasonable price. But Wal-Mart represents more than that. It represents entrepreneurship, efficiency, and the American Dream. And while the country might currently be down on big businesses, Americans still believe in these values. We still believe that wealth should be celebrated not scorned, that a good business model should not be artificially capped, that the government should promote and not encumber corporate growth, and that it should be American corporations, not Chinese ones that economically conquer the far ends of the Earth.

A healthy business environment is especially dear to two types of voters: 1) business men and women who feel the effects of the government’s intervention in the economy; and 2) the American youth who dream of becoming the next Sam Walton.

So how can the Republican Party regain these voters? It should not be too hard to win back the first category of voters — the Republican Party has long been the party of corporate America. Of course, to keep these voters, the Republicans need to do more to reform the tax code in order to promote investment. And the regulatory system still needs reform: less is more; stability and transparency are key.

But most importantly, the Republican Party needs to send a clear message that it is still friendly to business. Instead of letting Mike Huckabee harangue leading firms and business personalities, the party should focus on the positive effects of American corporations, salute the many examples of morally-upright businesspeople, and push for policies that allow entrepreneurs to succeed. Why alienate a class that has been so loyal to the party?

To attract more young voters, a demographic that overwhelmingly favored the Democratic Party in 2008, the Republican Party needs to emphasize that it is the party of economic opportunity. While the Democratic Party seeks to rein in American businesses with ever more restrictive regulations, the Republican Party promotes entrepreneurship in order to ensure that America remains a place where starting a business and achieving economic success remains possible.

Three days ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an article in which he described the mentality of Washington’s power brokers. “[Washingtonians] have certain resentments toward those with [financial] means,” Brooks wrote. But while Washington and the Democrats who run it want nothing more than to bash big business, much of the country still prefers the American dream of entrepreneurship and wealth. The Republican Party should cater to these people by showing how every American can start his own Wal-Mart, not by attacking a successful American company.

Stephen I. Richer graduated from Tulane University and has a masters in political science from the Univerity of Chicago. He is a regular contributor to the D.C. Writeup.

Early in July, her resignation sent shockwaves through her state and generated buzz throughout the pundit world about what political plans she might have for the future.

I’m not talking about Sarah Palin. I’m talking about New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte.

In a short statement released on July 7, Ayotte thanked Democratic Governor John Lynch and the people of New Hampshire for giving her the honor of serving as their attorney general and announced that she planned to “explore a campaign for the United States Senate.”

New Hampshire Republicans are looking to Ayotte to stop the party’s slide into irrelevance and lead a GOP resurgence in the Granite State. In 2006, all four of New Hampshire’s U.S. senators and representatives were Republicans. Since then, the Democrats have won both of the Live Free or Die State’s congressional seats and, in 2008, Democrats gained one of the state’s two senate seats when Jeanne Shaheen handily defeated Republican incumbent John E. Sununu. Considering that Republican Sen. Judd Gregg’s has announced that he will not seek re-election next fall and Sununu’s decision not to enter another Senate race, Ayotte is the best chance New Hampshire Republicans have to avoid a Capitol Hill exile.

Though she has never run a campaign, the 41-year-old Ayotte boasts an impressive resume. She joined the attorney general’s office in 1998 and soon earned a reputation for prosecuting white collar, public corruption and murder cases. Ayotte became a household name across the Granite State for her successful prosecution of two men who were found guilty of murdering two Dartmouth professors. And when New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed was forced to resign in 2004 after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a colleague, Republican Governor Craig Benson tapped Ayotte to fill the vacancy, making her the first female attorney general in New Hampshire history.

At the time, many questioned whether Ayotte had the experience necessary to manage the Granite State’s Justice Department, especially after Heed’s abrupt resignation. But Ayotte handled the situation well, and said that her experience in the courtroom had prepared her for the tasks at hand. “Talking to a jury is just talking to people, trying to explain the facts of a story so they can understand what happened so they are able to make an informed decision, and I think management is similar,” Ayotte told reporters in 2004.

Ayotte has surprised many conservatives with her forceful defense of conservative positions in court and in the press. In 2005, Ayotte fought the U.S. Court of Appeals’ First Circuit Court’s ruling that New Hampshire’s law requiring parental notification for a minor to have an abortion was illegal. Ayotte took the case to the Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the First Circuit’s decision. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Circuit should not have invalidated the entire abortion-notification statute just because it did not explicitly provide for an exception for cases in which a girl’s health was at risk. In addition, Ayotte pushed back when members of the New Hampshire legislature held hearings to repeal the death penalty shortly after the murder of police officer Michael Briggs, calling the hearings an “insult to law enforcement officers.” Recently, Ayotte has also made headlines by pushing back against Massachusetts’ efforts to slap a 5-percent tax on items purchased by Commonwealth residents in the Granite State. Massachusetts residents regularly travel to sales tax-free New Hampshire to avoid paying Massachusetts’ high sales tax. Massachusetts claimed legal jurisdiction over multi-state retailers that operated in Massachusetts and demanded that a tire retailer, Town Fair Tire, turn over information on Massachusetts residents who purchased tires at their New Hampshire stores. Ayotte filed an amicus brief in the case supporting Town Fair Tire’s refusal to cooperate. “New Hampshire businesses will not become agents of Massachusetts tax authorities,” Ayotte wrote in the brief.

By any measure, Ayotte’s tenure as attorney general has been a success. New Hampshire Business Magazine has recognized Ayotte as one of New Hampshire’s 10 most powerful people, and in 2008 the New Hampshire Union Leader named Ayotte New Hampshire’s “citizen of the year.”

While this will be her first campaign for elected office, Ayotte’s admirers across the Granite State are certain that she will be able to persuade New Hampshire voters to send her to Washington.

George E. Bianchi, Jr. is a senior at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts studying history and education. He will be a regular contributor to the D.C. Writeup and will primarily be writing about the state of conservatism in New England.

Reading the newspaper and listening to pundits, it would appear as though every Republican in Massachusetts had either fled to New Hampshire or been run over by a geriatric driver. According to the chattering class, the Bay State evicted the Grand Old Party from the governors’ office for good in 2006, after 16 years of Republican governors who all came down with Potomac fever.

Enter Charlie Baker.

Baker’s looks and turnaround record remind many Bay State Republicans of Mitt Romney, and his experience in both the public and private sectors has had many insiders clamoring for him to run for governor or for the Senate for years. Baker, the CEO and President of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, previously served as the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Administration and Finance under governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci.

Listening to Baker, it is clear that he models himself after his former boss, Massachusetts’ fiscally conservative but socially liberal former governor, William Weld. Weld returns the admiration. In response to news that Baker was entering the race for governor, Weld said that he considered himself a “Baker Republican” and that Baker “knows more about government than I do or ever did . . . Charlie Baker is different. People with that much ability and that much devotion and that much sand and gravel don’t come along all that often.’’

Despite the respect that Baker has earned from his peers in government and business, he remains virtually unknown among voters. (Baker’s only elected office was to the city council in his native Swampscott, a suburb north of Boston.) Democrats see that lack of familiarity as working to their advantage. As Governor Patrick supporter and Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman commented, Baker “exists in the political universe, but is a complete nonentity to real people.”

However, with public disapproval of Governor Patrick and the politicians on Beacon Hill near record lows, Baker’s fresh face might prove to be a political boon, as it was for candidate Deval Patrick in 2006, when he defeated the more experienced Attorney General Thomas Reilly in the Democratic primary, before toppling Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey in the general election.

But to get elected, Baker will have to overcome the stereotype of the heartless health insurance CEO. He’ll have to use his experience in the health care industry to attract voters looking for a candidate with the expertise necessary to fix the problems that plague Massachusetts Universal Health Care program, without becoming a symbol of what’s wrong with the current health care system.

Perhaps that’s why Baker started his own blog, Let’s Talk Health Care, in April of 2007. Through the blog, Baker has been able to engage with Harvard Pilgrim members and the public on a wide variety of health care issues, including the cost of health insurance mandates, prescription drug coverage mandates, health care information technology and government run health care.

While it remains to be seen whether Baker has the political savvy to match his business acumen, Baker’s announcement of his candidacy for governor already has Massachusetts’ Republicans more excited than they’ve been since before Governor Mitt Romney announced that he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2006. But with almost 16 months until Election Day 2010, Baker and the Massachusetts GOP should have plenty of time to get to know the voters, and for the voters to get to know them. Win or lose, Baker has already proven one thing: the Republican Party is far from dead in the Commonwealth.

George E. Bianchi, Jr. is a senior at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts studying history and education. He will be a regular contributor to the D.C. Writeup and will primarily be writing about the state of conservatism in New England. Photo: Steven Senne/Associated Press.

It would be an overstatement to call the conflict between Mexico and its drug cartels a “civil war,” as some observers have — but not that much of an overstatement. Since January, the conflict has taken more than 1,000 lives in northern Mexico alone, and Mexico City is now the world’s kidnapping capital.

Fearing that the violence in Mexico could spill over the border, commentators from the United States have offered a number of suggestions for how the U.S. should approach the conflict. So far, the U.S. government has tried to deal with the conflict by increasing funding for Mexican anti-narcotic forces and tightening border enforcement at the Mexican border. In March, President Obama announced that his administration would to exactly that.

But this approach is controversial.

Others, including David Frum, favor using demand-side mechanisms to deal with the conflict. By cutting U.S. demand for illegal drugs — and the profitability of smuggling them — they hope to weaken the drug cartels and tamp down the violence.

Analysts at the Cato Institute have offered half-step and full-step solutions for decriminalizing the drug trade. With the drug trade brought out into the open, the thinking goes, it would no longer be necessary to forcibly suppress it.

Each of these prescriptions has its merits, but before the U.S. rushes to cure the Mexican patient, it would do well to remember the clause in the Hippocratic Oath that says doctors should “abstain from doing harm.”

Unfortunately, Obama and the Democratic Congress are doing exactly that — harming the patient. The NAFTA-skeptic Democrats recently banned Mexican trucks from operating more than 25 miles from the Mexican border. Mexico retaliated by slapping $2.4 billion in import tariffs on U.S. goods.

This unnecessary trade war is bad for both countries — but it’s especially bad for Mexico.

“If the tariff sticks, it [will have] serious costs,” former director of the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere Department, Claudio Loser, told Bloomberg in March. “It creates distortions and reduces the welfare of the consumers in Mexico.”

Harming Mexico’s already flagging economy will only further destabilize the country. It will leave the Mexican government with even fewer resources to use it in its fight against the drug cartels, and will drive already desperate Mexicans to ally themselves with the comparatively wealthy drug outfits.

Republicans should pounce on the harm caused by the administration and reaffirm itself as the party of free trade. Free trade is an important first step in stabilizing Mexico, a key ally and our third-largest trading partner. But there are also political gains to be had. Throughout the 2008 election season, Republicans were portrayed as the party in conflict with the rest of the world. Now, it is the Democrats who are igniting high-stakes games of tit-for-tat with our neighbors. Free trade is also an issue that resounds with young voters and the well-educated elite — two groups the Republican Party failed to capture in November. Finally, a Republican Party that is friendly to the Mexican government could make political gains among Latinos in the United States, a majority of whom either come from Mexico or have Mexican ancestry.

The Republican Party should reiterate the case for free and flourishing trade with Mexico. By doing so, the party will both help stabilize a friendly neighbor and score political points at home.

Thursday, July 16

Today, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor concludes her testimony before the Senate after backtracking from comments on judicial bias. Also, RNC Chairman Michael Steele makes some unwise comments of his own. Liberals and Conservatives stick to party lines as Obama engages Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl in a health care duel. Democrats in the House push for massive tax hikes as Karl Rove launches an attack on Obama’s stimulus plan. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence searches for Kim Jong-Il’s mysterious heir, and the Chinese economy surges.

Unwise Answers from Wise Latina: Sotomayor Explains Comments

AP: During her second day of questioning, Sotomayor backs off slightly from earlier remarks, saying she intended the “wise Latina” speech to be inspiring. Today marks the final day of questioning.

“’It’s muddled, confusing, backtracking on issue after issue,” complained Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel. “I frankly am a bit disappointed in the lack of clarity and consistency in her answers’….Once she finishes testifying, Republicans plan to call New Haven, Conn., firefighter Frank Ricci, who passed a promotion exam only to see the city toss out the results because too few minorities qualified for promotion. His ensuing discrimination complaint gives the GOP another chance to portray Sotomayor as a judge who allows her bias to dictate the outcome of a case.”—Read More

Steele to Bring Minorities to GOP with “Fried Chicken”

HuffPo: RNC Chairman Michael Steele makes some unfortunate comments to bloggers at the Young Republicans convention in Indianapolis last week.

“Local Republican blog Hoosier Access was able to get RNC Chairman Michael Steele to sit down with a group of bloggers and they taped the conversation. The old gaffe-o-matic (or as I like to call him, the Republican Joe Biden!) answers a question from a gay person of color in this clip about the GOP’s diversity outreach.”—Read More

Obama Duels with Kyl

Politco: Upset over criticism of the President’s stimulus and health care plans, the White House is targeting Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-AZ, with ads and appeals to Arizona’s governor.

“So after seeing Kyl and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) again paint the legislation as a failure on Sunday talk shows, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel directed that the letters from the Cabinet secretaries be sent to Brewer, according to two administration officials. And then the DNC made sure other Republicans saw the message being delivered to Arizona by touting the letters.”–Read More

Dems Hike Taxes to Pre-Reagan Levels

Washington Times: Top earners would hand over 45 percent of their income in the House Democrats’ health care proposal. Business advocates warn this could cripple the economy.

“Polls show most Americans support raising taxes on the rich. However, the last time Democrats pursued that agenda in 1993, when they raised the top federal income tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, they lost their congressional majorities in both chambers the next year.”—Read More

Mystery Teenager to Take Control of North Korea

WaPo: American intelligence is racing to discover the identity of a North Korean student who briefly enrolled in a Swiss boarding school. The boy is suspected to be Kim Jong-Il’s heir.

“LIEBEFELD, Switzerland — In August 1998, as famine reached a terrible climax in North Korea, the destitute Asian nation enrolled a shy teenager in a Swiss state school. He arrived with a fake name, a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers and a passion for American basketball. ”–Read More

Rove: Obama is Hiding Stimulus Failure

WSJ: As progressives call for yet another stimulus package, Karl Rove suggests the White House is trying to lower expectations in order to distract Americans from the failings of his original stimulus plan.

“When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, “You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” Now it’s clear that those promised jobs and growth haven’t materialized. So Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post that his stimulus “was, from the start, a two-year program.” That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.”—Read More

China Booms as World Plummets into Recession

NYT: The Communist nation’s economy grows by an astounding eight percent, a statistic which some attribute to aggressive lending practices.

“Some analysts, however, have warned that China’s growth also holds serious risks because of an explosion of bank lending that could eventually led to non-performing loans, overly aggressive infrastructure spending that could be wasteful, and policies that do not favor private businesses.”—Read More

Limb-Hating Man Voluntarily Causes Amputation

ABC: Saying he felt his leg just didn’t belong, the man used dry ice to ruin his healthy limb.

“Well at times I tried to – you know sort of fatally injure the leg with tourniquets and the likes of that. Dropping the weight of the car on the knee and things like that and but you know the leg was made of tougher stuff than I imagined. And it wasn’t until I was about thirty that I thought now get rid of it once and for all.”—Read More

Surge in Octogenarian Pickpockets Worries Authorities

UPI: An elderly thief is nabbed by Italian police.

“PESARO– Italian police said an 88-year-old woman with a history of petty theft was caught attempting to steal a woman’s purse at a weekly market in Pesaro.”—Read More

Court Commends Drunk for Passing Out in Car

AP: After being awoken by police and forced to drive drunk, the teenager successfully argues entrapment.

“Once out of the parking lot, Peterson was arrested for drunken driving. He was subsequently found guilty and ordered to spend 60 days in jail. A Wisconsin appeals court on Wednesday commended Peterson for doing the right thing by trying to sleep it off, and said the trial court was wrong not to let him argue that police had entrapped him.”—Read More

The past few years have been a disaster for the Republican Party. The GOP has lost 52 seats in the House and 11 in the Senate since the November 2006 midterm elections. A series of prominent Republicans, from Idaho Sen. Larry Craig to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, have succumbed to sex scandals. And of course, last fall the Republicans lost the presidency to a liberal Democrat from Illinois.

But the GOP’s fortunes may be beginning to change. For the first time since 2006, the political ingredients necessary for a Republican resurgence are mixing together. President Obama and the Democrats no longer look invincible, and the Republicans no longer look dead.

To be sure, Obama remains popular. His overall approval rating is in the low to mid 50s, depending on which poll you consult, and his average net approval rating (the percentage of Americans who approve of Obama’s performance minus the percentage of Americans who disapprove) is still a healthy 18 percent, according to Real Clear Politics. But those numbers are falling and are significantly weaker than they were last month, or even last week. Obama’s support among men, white Catholics and independents — all groups that were essential in getting him elected — is eroding at a particularly rapid rate, as is his support among Republicans. This is troubling for the 83 House Democrats who represent conservative-leaning districts because, as the 2008 election illustrated, an unpopular incumbent president can weigh down a party’s congressional candidates. It’s also bad news for Obama, who’s going to need moderate and conservative supporters in order to get reelected in 2012.

So why is Obama’s popularity declining?

Part of it is inevitable. Presidents almost always enjoy high approval ratings for the first few months after their inaugurations, only to see their popularity decline later as voters become disillusioned with their inability to deliver on campaign promises. This is especially true of Obama, the man who built his campaign on a foundation of unusually lofty rhetoric and unfulfillable promises. It was inevitable that the high expectations Obama set for himself would eventually come back to haunt him.

But part of Obama’s declining popularity is the direct result of the decisions he’s made in office. His refusal to take a strong stand on behalf of the Iranian protestors last month angered foreign policy hawks. His record spending increases and interventionist economic initiatives have upset fiscal conservatives, and his silence on gay rights issues has upset some liberals and libertarians.

Polls show that voters are also becoming increasingly disenchanted with Obama’s specific policy proposals. 57 percent of Americans oppose cap-and-trade, the centerpiece of his administration’s environmental policy; 41 percent of Americans want Obama’s $787 billion stimulus to be canceled and 60 percent oppose passing a second stimulus; and 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama’s takeover of General Motors.

More generally, support for Obama’s handling of the economy has plummeted in recent weeks. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; it was only a matter of time before voters began to blame Obama for a recession that has grown worse under his watch. Obama and the Democrats — who are in full control of the presidency, the House and the Senate — are running out of excuses. They could be in serious electoral trouble if the economy doesn’t rebound soon.

It won’t. In May, the Congressional Budget Office released a report predicting that the unemployment rate, already at 9.5 percent, will continue climbing through 2010.

So, inflated rhetoric and controversial policies are already costing Obama public support. The GOP needs to concentrate on exploiting these two weaknesses and blending them together into a coherent and politically potent narrative: that Obama is an ineffective, latter-day Jimmy Carter.

Republicans can exploit Obama’s inflated rhetoric by highlighting his failure to deliver on his promises — especially on his economic ones. By exposing the gap between Obama’s rhetoric and his accomplishments, Republicans can transform Obama’s message of “hope” into a punch line. This will neutralize Obama’s most powerful weapon: his rhetoric. More importantly, it will undermine Obama’s personal popularity and leave him vulnerable to partisan attacks.

The more people see Obama for what he is — an ideologue posing as a pragmatist and a politician posing as a miracle worker — the more the GOP’s attacks on Obama’s policies will resonate. And with unemployment projected to hover around 10 percent through 2010, there will be plenty for Republicans to criticize.

The GOP needs to be relentless in their attacks on the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, like the Democrats were with their attacks on the Bush administration and the Republican Congress earlier in the decade. As the Democrats proved back then, the best way to destroy a presidency and discredit a party is by chipping away at its agenda, piece by piece, day by day, and bill by bill. This will play into a larger theme of Obama’s inexperience and incompetence.

Of course, the 2010 midterm elections are still 16 months away. It’s possible that the economy will recover ahead of schedule, or that some unforeseen crisis will bolster Obama’s approval ratings at just the right time. Still, anything’s possible. In politics, 16 months is an awful long time.

The delta smelt is a blue, 2-inch long fish native to California’s Sacramento River delta.

It’s also a symbol of environmentalism gone awry.

Two years ago, Federal District Judge Oliver Wanger imposed restrictions on how much California’s state water authority can pump out of the Sacramento River, on the grounds that the water pumps were drawing in and killing the endangered delta smelt, in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. The pumps supply millions of Californian farms, businesses and consumers with water.

The pump restrictions may be good for the delta smelt, but they’re awful for California. As a result of the restrictions, thousands of acres of farmland in the once fertile western San Joaquin Valley are drying up, 85,000 Californian farmers and laborers are out of work, and whole towns are dying. In Mendota, a century-old farming town west of Fresno, unemployment has reached 41 percent. In nearby Firebaugh, the unemployment rate has reached 40 percent. Overall, the pump restrictions are expected to cost California’s agriculture industry upwards of $500 million per year, indefinitely.

In April, thousands of farmers gathered at the San Luis Reservoir near Los Banos, Calif., to protest the pump restrictions. The Stockton (Calif.) Record interviewed one of those protestors, a 55-year-old almond farmer named Sharon Wakefield. At the time, the federal government was preparing to completely shut off the flow of water to Wakefield’s farm. Without water, Wakefield’s almond trees will die.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Wakefield said. “My family came out [to California] with the Dust Bowl, and I’m not going back.”

Wakefield is one of the human victims of modern environmentalism, a movement that increasingly ignores the human costs of its efforts. What was once a movement dedicated to serving humanity and grounded in reason has gradually morphed into an ideological crusade grounded in hysteria. And what was once a campaign to improve the quality of life of humans is now fighting to improve the quality of life of fish — at the expense of humans.

This is insane. And yet, this sort of environmental radicalism creates an opportunity that the Republican Party can easily exploit: an opportunity to steer the environmental movement down a more moderate path by offering pragmatic solutions to America’s environmental challenges.

So far, Republicans have failed to do that. According to a 2008 Pew Research Center poll, 65 percent of voters believe that Democrats are better at protecting the environment than Republicans. Only 21 percent of voters told Pew that Republicans are better than Democrats at protecting the environment.

With environmentalism surging in popularity, Republicans can no longer afford to be seen as the anti-environmental party. According to a 2008 ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University poll, 41 percent of Americans now describe themselves as environmentalists and 42 percent of Americans now say they prefer to vote for environmentalist candidates over non-environmentalist candidates. Only six percent of Americans would prefer to vote for a non-environmentalist candidate over an environmentalist candidate.

In the coming years, environmentalism is likely to grow even more popular — which is why the GOP can no longer afford to cede environmental issues to the Democrats. Instead, the Republican Party needs to engage in environmental debates, gain credibility with voters on environmental issues, and start to influence and shape environmental debates, from what to do about global warming to what to do about delta smelt.

For this to happen, the Republicans need an environmental vision. They need to define what a Republican approach to environmentalism would look like.

It could look something like this:

First, a Republican approach to environmentalism would recognize that, while new environmental regulations may be necessary, those regulations don’t need to be oppressive and economically debilitating. Liberty and a healthy environment are not mutually exclusive.

Second, a Republican approach to environmentalism would emphasize personal responsibility. This means relying on individual initiative instead of government mandates; and on private-sector, free-market solutions to environmental challenges instead of on massive government interventions in the economy.

Finally, a Republican approach to environmentalism would consider environmental needs in light of human needs.

In the context of the delta smelt debate, a Republican environmentalist would have a simple solution: install filters on the Sacramento River’s water pumps. This would save most, but not all, of the delta smelt, and would spare California’s farms and farmers from economic destruction.

As Republican strategists prepare to revamp the GOP’s overall message in preparation for the 2010 and 2012 elections, they’d be wise to incorporate some form of environmentalism into that message. Doing so would benefit both the Republican Party and the country.

Photo: Jumping cheese

Over the past year, Meghan McCain has attempted to establish herself as the fresh, authoritative voice of the Republican Party. She blogs regularly on The Daily Beast and signed a six-figure book deal with Hyperion Books in April. She’s also been making the rounds on Larry King, The View, the Rachel Maddow Show, and the Colbert Report.

The subject of McCain’s second book is yet to be released, but it’s likely that it will focus on how the Republican Party should modernize and adapt its platform to attract younger voters. In April 2009, as the Log Cabin Republican Convention’s keynote speaker, McCain summed up her political views as follows:

“I am proud to join you in challenging the mold and the notions of what being a Republican means. I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people’s lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican.”

It’s true that asserting oneself as a Republican engenders particular stereotypes—and McCain rightly points to the diversity of the young voter demographic in asserting her differences. Since emerging into the political blogosphere during her father’s presidential run in 2008, McCain has resisted being pigeonholed as a traditional conservative. She described herself as “a pro-sex Republican” on the Colbert Report, but is also a self-proclaimed gun lover. She posed for the NOH8 celebrity photo ad campaign opposing California’s Proposition 8, but claims there is a double standard in the media towards conservative women.

As a young woman, I often find myself agreeing with McCain. I agree with her argument that that the Republican abstinence-only education platform is outdated. It makes sense to me that one of the best ways to reduce abortion rates is to make birth control and comprehensive sex education more accessible. I agreed with McCain when she criticized David Letterman for joking about Willow Palin, and pointed out that he “would never have considered doing the same about the daughter of a Democrat.”

But sometimes she makes me cringe. On the Rachel Maddow show in March, McCain said, “I didn’t even take econ [sic] in college. I don’t completely understand it so I’d hate to make a comment one way or the other. I keep reading and I just don’t understand it.”

At least she’s honest, right?

For once, I’d appreciate having a young, intelligent conservative woman in the media with whom I can identify. I’m sure that the Columbia University-educated McCain could speak about issues with a bit more substance than sex and her affinity for tattoos. There’s a serious lack of role modeling among young, conservative women at the forefront of media attention. Bristol Palin looks hypocritical on the cover of People magazine extolling abstinence-only education with a baby in her arms. Ann Coulter is impossible for any sane person to relate to. I’ve never met another woman who didn’t either completely love or completely hate Sarah Palin.

Meghan McCain would be much more credible if she were able to hold her own when challenged. For example, in an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher last week, McCain said that the Obama Administration should stop “blaming everything on its predecessor.” When Paul Begala, a former advisor to President Clinton, noted that Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, McCain responded, “You know I wasn’t born yet so I wouldn’t know.”

This isn’t to say McCain doesn’t have anything to offer. Her attempt to modernize the Republican Party’s image is with good intention. In May, Gallup reported that Republicans were losing support across all demographics. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama beat John McCain by 35 points among voters under the age of 30. Recovering at least some of the youth vote is essential for a Republican comeback in 2012 or 2016.

The Republican Party should not be obligated to remodel itself in order to appeal to young people, as McCain advocates. Young conservatives exist, but more need to step up to the forefront of the party’s leadership to demonstrate what Meghan McCain rightly highlighted—that conservatism is a broad political movement made up of many voices.