Part 3 of 3

By Katie Kieffer

Happy Hour tonight anyone? It’s my final day as Undercover Boss for the GOP, and I need a stiff drink after my GOP shareholder meeting this morning.

The GOP’s shareholders are frustrated with the party’s lack of growth. At first they were patient, but after 20 years of donating money, votes and volunteer hours to a party that seems to be on more birth control than Europe, they are fed up.

These shareholders, loyal Republican donors who have been the GOP’s bread and butter for years, want to know when they are going to get a return on their investment. One gray-haired benefactress raised her hand and asked me, “Is the party going to substantially increase the number of young people in its fold before I die? Otherwise, I’m ready to throw in the towel and give my money to the Tea Party movement.”

The overall consensus by GOP shareholders was that the party needs to focus to have a shot at adding new blood. And, these GOP donors knew exactly what they wanted the party to focus on in 2010: jobs.

Laser focus on jobs

I walked into this shareholder breakfast meeting thinking it was going to be one big brunch of GOP elephant ear pasties. And KT loves her elephant ear pastries. Well, I should have eaten breakfast before I came. These donors were ready to get down to business on straight coffee and bottled water.

One of the shareholders lectured as he passed out large stacks of paper: “President Barack Obama is presiding over the largest expansion of government in history and sixty-six percent youth, ages 18-40, voted for him in 2008. This is why you need to read this new study out of UCLA which shows that young people who live through a recession are more likely to believe that wealth and career success is the result of ‘luck’ rather than ‘effort,’ and they will therefore be more open to supporting more government redistribution of wealth via higher taxes.”

He continued, “Young people need to see the connection between capitalism and prosperity. This same study out of UCLA indicated that young people ‘hit with a negative macroeconomic shock have a significantly lower level of confidence in Congress and the executive branch of the federal government’ Said differently, young people have not yet turned against capitalism, and they have a healthy distrust of big government – but if they become convinced that “luck” and the redistribution of wealth are the only ways to achieve the American Dream, these views will outweigh their distrust of government and stay with them throughout their voting years.”

My undercover takeaways for the GOP: Neither “high taxes” nor “wealth through luck” are part of the GOP platform. They are liberal mantras. The time to act is now, if the GOP wants to show young people that the real sources of wealth are thriving free markets coupled with individual hard work and perseverance.

The GOP needs to hunker down and focus on showing young people that their future, and their ability to achieve the American Dream, will depend on reducing the size of government and lowering taxes so that small businesses – the fuel of our economy – can hire and innovate.

If the President succeeds in spending his way to a short-term recovery, the UCLA study suggests that many young Americans will become life-long believers in the liberal mantra that big government and big spending are real solutions. If the GOP lets the President ride his way into a second term on this short-term sugar high of fake job creation, it can kiss young voters and a growth trajectory goodbye.

Distractions that could kill job focus

After this meeting, my assessment is that one way for the GOP to achieve this laser focus on job creation is by avoiding distraction. Yesterday, I showcased a good example of negative distraction in the MN CR’s ‘Frankenstein’ You Tube video. Here’s another good example:

When Sarah Palin dug back into a private meeting held last summer by White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, where he called a proposal to air attack ads on conservative Democrats who opposed Obamacare “f—ing retarded,” she made a mistake that seemed out of character. Her Facebook announcement last week, appeared to be an attempt to pick a petty fight with Emanuel on a misguided statement he made to his peers nearly half-a-year ago that was not even directed at people with intellectual disabilities.

Palin’s call for Emanuel’s firing based on this comment rather than his performance sends the message that conservatives are hypersensitive name-callers who are afraid to tackle real issues and are thirsty for a fight.

No wonder young people vote for liberals. Liberals speak to the “feel-good” emotions, and Palin’s comment speaks to the “feel-bad” emotions. It tells young people that conservatives are angry bullies. Palin is strong, as I’ve blogged before, when she focuses on principle. Palin made a mistake in digging up this petty dirt, and hopefully the GOP will not make similar mistakes in its campaign to attract youth.

Now, the unintended consequences of Palin’s comment include:

• Wasted time and distraction from ending the recession and cutting the deficit.
• An unnecessary opportunity for liberal media outlets like The Huffington Post to make conservatives look like laughingstocks.
• New, anti-American legislation. In this case, it led to increased calls for speech codes and a move to ban the term “mental retardation” from legal and medical terminology in favor of “intellectual disability” to appease PC watchdogs.
  This is dangerous because as Jason Lewis stated on his talk show, “You do not have a right not to be offended in America. Get over it! … The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect speech that offends.” Additionally, the Washington Post reports that some advocates for the intellectually disabled feel, “the long campaign to change the term has been a waste of time, because the lexicon of insults is likely to expand to include any new terms and because it has distracted from more pressing needs.”

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The GOP needs to focus on jobs and minimize petty distraction to grow its base with young professionals. Young people want jobs and job security. They want the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. The GOP has the opportunity to be the party that helps them achieve these goals.

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