Ken Blackwell, in his letter to RNC members announcing his candidacy for chairman, suggests the following as a solution to the Republican Party’s woes among young voters:

Expend an unprecedented amount of RNC funding to build vibrant College Republican chapters on every major university campus in the nation and use those chapters as a base to register young people to join the Republican Party

Mr. Blackwell, as a young voter and college student, I must say that suggesting that this proposal will serve as a significant step toward improving our relations with young voters is a farce. At best, simply throwing money toward building College Republican chapters will do nothing to win over young voters, and at worst, it will serve to exacerbate our problems.

In its own right, fighting to grow College Republicans is a great idea – as a second term President of Carnegie Mellon University’s College Republicans, I very much appreciate the desire to do this. However, College Republicans organizations serve to engage young voters who are already affiliated with the Republican Party rather than working to get new faces to join the GOP. Regardless of the amount of money we invest in College Republicans, if young voters don’t like our ideas or our candidates, then they’re not going to vote Republican. And they’re certainly not going to join College Republicans.

Indeed, our problem with appealing to the youngest voting bloc, as I’ve previously written, has nothing to do with a lack of organizational infrastructure. Here is a brief reiteration of the reasons that we’re bleeding young voters from the GOP:

1. A seeming lack of interest in fighting to win over young voters. Many young voters – at least those who don’t directly affiliate with the Republican Party (in other words, the majority of young voters) – do not believe that the Republican Party is willing to fight for their vote. Dramatically increasing the RNC’s investment in College Republicans in order to get “young people to join the Republican Party” will only serve to further instill this belief.  If we want to win back young voters, we must be willing to take innovative measures to fight for the youth vote.  In order to accomplish this, I’ve previously advocated a “Young Voter Outreach arm” of the RNC that would “actively serve to ‘sell’ the Republican Party to young voters.”  Specifically:
   

   This arm of the RNC must be overseen by – surprise – a Republican under the age of 30. It would be responsible for working with the RNC’s eCampaign folks to launch new, state-of-the-art websites, blogs, and other online projects that are designed specifically to appeal to young voters who are not necessarily Republicans. One of the goals of these projects should be to serve to answer crucial questions like, “Why is the Republican Party’s platform the right one for me as a young voter?” or “Why should I, as a young voter, be alarmed about the Democrats’ plan to [insert bad policy here – redistribute the wealth, raise taxes, etc.]?”

2. Young voters see the Republican Party as old and outdated. The reasoning for this can be split into three distinct areas:  candidates, government intervention, and branding/identity.
   • Candidates. Without question, it is challenging to win the youth vote when you pit a 72 year old man against a 47 year old man (i.e. John McCain vs. Barack Obama).  This is why, as a member of the Rebuild the Party coalition, I’ve endorsed a “40 under 40″ initiative “where at least 40% of our challenger and open seat candidates for Congress are under 40.”  Additionally, young officials like Governor Jindal, Representative Cantor, and newly elected Representative Cao must have a leading role in the future of the party.
   • Government intervention. There is an undeniable libertarian streak among younger voters. They want as little government in their lives as possible. Although this means that young voters tend to be opposed to various interventionist measures by the left, it also means that many are strongly against measures from the right like governmental bans on gay marriage.  In fact, many young voters see the Republican Party’s pursuit of this sort of government intervention to be antithetical to the GOP’s claim to be the party of limited government.  Moreover, arguing for intervention in these areas reinforces the notion that the GOP is the party of older generations to these voters.
   • Branding and Identity. The Obama campaign’s groundbreaking use of branding and a Web 2.0 identity cannot be underestimated as a factor in its success, especially among young voters.  Fortunately, by investing resources in retooling our branding, this is one area in which we can easily beat the Democratics.

Please consider these thoughts, Mr. Blackwell.  We must invest in new, innovative ideas if we truly want to win back young voters.  Increasing our investment in existing institutions and ideas is simply not enough.

Last 5 posts by Aaron Marks

• Onward and Upward: Building a Sustainable Majority - January 22nd, 2010
• Dear Young Voters: This Is What You Get When You Don't Vote - December 1st, 2009
• The Youth Vote and the 2009 Elections - November 6th, 2009
• The Best of the Post-2009 Election Spin - November 5th, 2009
• Introducing NextGenGOP Executive Director James Kane - October 20th, 2009