Act Your Age
I played master of ceremonies last night to the National Federation of Young Republicans award ceremony here in Indianapolis. Overall, they were like a lot of young people in political parties; a lot of energy and a lot of ideas. And they approach politics with spark of wide-eyed optimism and a sprinkle of naivette that makes a lot of us reflect back to our early days in the process, whether we are operatives or commentators.
I still occassionally think back to my first interview in college with state representative at Northern Illinois University way back in the early 90s, the first time I asked a Governor about a budget and shouted my first question at a Presidential candidate making his way through the Illinois State Fairgrounds. However age and time have taught me something a lot of the Young Republicans are going to have to learn soon, or a lot of their efforts are going to wasted; someone who disagrees with you 20 percent of the time is ususally with you the other 80 percent.
There was blow-up at the convention over the nomination of a young lady named Audra Shay for YR Chairwoman. Some of her opponents couldn’t stand the fact she was going to win, so they started an Internet campaign calling racist and those comments were picked up by the Huffington Post and some other blogs. Needless to say while the evening’s festivities were orderly you could still tell there was tension there.
I’d tell the kids to grow up, but that means they would be acting like the GOP at the national level. I have never been a big fan of the “true believer” crowd because blind zealotry tends to cloud your vision and you miss out on building crucial coalitions needed to govern. And as long as the GOP in-fights, the party will stay in the minority and no matter how much the President’s poll numbers may slip, you can’t beat somebody with nobody, especially if who you’re divided over who that nobody is.
But at least these kids had an excuse, they’re kids.