Then, on Thursday, a blogger at DailyKos published a diary rife with wild speculation, and unfounded insinuations, including an unredacted version of Veronica’s Direct Messages to @Goatsred, which also contains Betty’s name. This is the problem with new media, an ignorance, or contempt, or simple disregard, for established journalistic practices. Redacting the names would have no effect on the item’s news value, and the message states they are high school girls, but the blogger either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

When the girls’ parents became aware of this, they were very distressed, fearing for their children’s safety and privacy. I assured them that I would contact the blog’s proprietor, Markos Moulitsas (a father himself), and he would surely take it down, or redact their names.

The reality, though, was quite another story. When I contacted Moulitsas, he refused to call me, insisting upon email, which greatly hampered the amount of detail I could give him. The result was that he refused to redact their names, or make any changes, but the actual emails demonstrate a reprehensible lack of compassion or responsibility: (Warning: There is some very strong language)

VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:22 PM
subject VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

They are sources of mine, and scared shitless, please call me. xxx-xxx-xxxx

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:26 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Email me the info.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:29 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

These are confidential sources. If you can’t call me, at least have this blog taken down, or redact the DM screenshot, including the names (redacted) and the name (redacted), and the girl’s picture. And any reference to those names in the comments or story

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:58 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Please let me know what’s going on. I will be posting these girls’ story pretty soon, with proper protection. They just don’t want all these bread crumbs out there. They are 16 years old.

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:34 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

That’s a community member’s post. Not my staff. I don’t exert editorial control over what the community writes absent legal imperatives or deeply offensive material. Right now, I’m seeing neither.

I’m not sure I get why you want me to pull that. Those DMs appear relevant to the story. As I understand it, those two individuals injected themselves into a political smear effort, why should they be protected now?

Open to a counter argument that has nothing to do with protecting your source.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

They are both minor children and (redacted) was not involved. Will discuss further if you need, not on email. There could be legal implications, I’m not a lawyer. I’m going to post their story fairly soon, but will discuss off the record by phone if you need.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:20 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

I’m prepping my story now. Are you going to leave it as is? These girls are afraid. Here’s a redacted version, if you want to drop it in. That’s all I ask. You’re a father, think about it for a sec.

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

If they’re so afraid, why are they talking to you?

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

And to be clear, no, I’m not getting involved. I see no reason to protect your scoop.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Because I have promised to protect their identities.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

It’s not my scoop I’m protecting, it’s these young girls. Jesus, all I’m asking is that you redact the names of these children. Please.

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

So did @goatsred.

Again, not my responsibility to protect your sources.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:40 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Dude, it is your responsibility to protect the identities of minors, sources or not. I can’t believe you. This gesture will cost you nothing, and it will save these girls being subjected to fuck knows what. As a father, I beg you, please redact these girls’ names.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 12:17 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

This is the last I’ll say on the subject, and you can take it for what it’s worth, like I said, I’m not a legal expert, but this girl’s parents are livid and talking about legal action. Obviously, you didn’t know it was posted, but you know now.

from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 12:56 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Wish them luck going after @goatsred.

from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to Markos Moulitsas
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 1:08 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors

Well, he has removed it from his YFrog. Probably not out of decency, but now, you’re the only obstacle to their safety. I really can’t believe you’re doing this. I hope you think better of it.

It disgusts me to see any person behave this way, particularly a fellow liberal. It is my hope that he rethinks this, or that enough of my fellow liberals (he’s not likely to be persuaded by conservatives) encourage him (perhaps via Twitter) to do the right thing, and protect these girls. Their parents are sick with worry over this, and the frustrating part is that I promised them, every step of the way, that I would protect them, that I would kill the story rather than risk harm to these girls.

Read the whole, very interesting article here.

“I hope he [Weiner] comes after me. Look up my IP. Nothing to hide here. I’d voluntarily hand anything they want over. Check me and my IP. Anything. I did not post that tweet.”

Twitter user Dan Wolfe (known as @patriotusa76) has clarified several details concerning his involvement in the “Weinergate” scandal, insisting that a thorough investigation of the tweets in question will prove he did not compromise the verified Twitter account of Congressman Anthony Weiner (D, NY-9). In a series of direct messages on Twitter, Wolfe explains how he found the offensive image sent from Weiner’s Twitter account, his previous tweets about accounts followed by the Congressman, and his desire for law enforcement to investigate his online activity that night.

Asked whether he followed Congressman Weiner or the recipient of the controversial tweet, Wolfe states he “wasn’t following either of them ever.” He named several other twitter uses who he regularly communicates with, explaining, “Our twitter group mentions him a lot because he appears in media a lot and says things we hate a lot. If he wasn’t saying anything, we wouldn’t comment.” Wolfe claims that on May 27th, the date the tweet went public, he navigated to the @RepWeiner account by clicking on Weiner’s username on a retweet in his Twitter stream. The tweet in question was the much-discussed one where Weiner announced the time of his upcoming appearance on the Rachel Maddow show with the hashtag #Thats545InSeattleIThink. “I found the 5:45 tweet weird,” Wolfe says.

Describing his discovery of the lewd yfrog-image tweet, Wolfe states, “It was after [Maddow's] show and after the [Seattle] tweet that I had clicked on there– on his page, and he tweeted the pic to [redacted] and I clicked on it. I was shocked. I capped [screen captured] it. Capped the tweet, everything. That’s all. Then I RT [retweeted].” His retweet of Weiner’s account includes the same yfrog URL in screen captures and the TweetCongress archive of the original message. If Wolfe was not following both accounts, he would not have seen the tweet in his primary timeline, but if he was viewing Weiner’s profile, he would have seen the account’s latest tweets–even ones addressed to users Wolfe did not follow. By his admission of not following either account, Wolfe’s claim rests on a coincidence–that he was at the right place at the right time.

Several websites have deemed this coincidence suspicious in light of Wolfe’s mentions of Weiner before the “Weinergate” incident. Daily Kos blogger “Stef,” in a “smoking gun” update to a post claiming the tweet from Weiner’s account was a “Twitter Hoax” involving Andrew Breitbart, sardonically notes that Wolfe predicted a sex scandal involving Weiner and explicit pictures on May 11th, over two weeks before Big Government and Big Journalism first reported “Weinergate.” The author does not accuse Wolfe of hijacking Weiner’s account to post the photo, but she does point out the coincidence that Wolfe was the only real-time witness and retweeter of the alleged lewd message when, weeks earlier, he spread that rumor and asserted “@RepWeiner loves young girls.” Gawker author Max Read stated that the recipient of the “Weinergate” tweet, through her statement to the New York Daily News, “would seem to corroborate” Stef’s “theories,” adding that Wolfe “may be the person responsible for the Congressman’s errant Tweet.”

In response, Wolfe again cites his circle of like-minded Twitter contacts. “It’s not just me–see my regular buddies here [redacted] [redacted], etc. We talk about him because he is always around.” In Stef’s screenshot of Wolfe’s May 12th tweets, his linked screenshots of young women allegedly followed by Weiner belong to the yfrog account of one of the Twitter users he privately disclosed. Wolfe continues, “People noticed a pattern on him and our group, all of us–you can see ALL our timelines–not just me–we saw the pattern too.”

Contrary to Stef’s report, Wolfe first tweeted about Congressman Weiner and a sex scandal on May 5th, citing a friend’s report of a right-wing blog rumor. The rumor vaguely claimed that a high-profile, northeast-region Democrat was involved in a sex scandal with photo evidence. Wolfe speculated that the politicians who fit that profile were Charles Rangel, Anthony Weiner, or Barney Frank, and he asked Weiner and Rangel one after the other multiple times if they were involved in the scandal. One of Wolfe’s final tweets on the subject on May 11th said it was his “hope” Weiner was the politician in question “if [the] rumor is true.”

As for the insinuation that he hacked into Weiner’s Twitter account, Wolfe understands that it’s his word against the Congressman’s, and he is eager for law enforcement to investigate his online activity. Citing “tons of threats wishing me dead, murdered, etc.” in the wake of Daily Kos’s and Gawker’s articles, he states, “I wonder if I can call the authorities myself and ask for an investigation. It would clear me in minutes.” Wolfe also remarked to blogger Ace of Spades, “I hope he [Weiner] comes after me. Look up my IP. Nothing to hide here. I’d voluntarily hand anything they want over. Check me and my IP. Anything. I did not post that tweet.”

The recipient of Weiner’s controversial tweet has returned to Twitter and refutes any claim that she has accused Wolfe of hijacking the @RepWeiner account.  She also laments her continuing media attention: “I’m pretty sure it’s been 15 minutes; I’d like to fade back into oblivion now.” In the conflicting accounts and interpretations of the weekend’s events, one thing is clear: this mystery will be solved and the suffering of these two private citizens will cease most quickly with an official investigation of what IP address sent the controversial tweet from Congressman Weiner’s account.

The national liberal blog Daily Kos – aided by a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – is raising misleading questions regarding the April 5 Supreme Court election because election results on the website of the Waukesha County clerk for past elections showed more votes than ballots cast.

However, the blog and the newspaper that reported on its propaganda failed to tell readers that the reason for the gap was widely known at the time it occurred – and had nothing to do with failings by Kathy Nickolas or nefariousness that would call the races into question.

Indeed, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel itself reported on the reasoning back in 2006 (two communities’ decisions to use new voting machines that year caused them to not electronically report all votes, although they were counted). Although some were unhappy with slow returns as a result, the election results weren’t questioned, and did get completely reported to the state, meaning the Daily Kos’ “big gap” is a complete non-story, and the Journal Sentinel, missed basic journalism 101 (looking up its own archives) by covering it as such.

Although several elections were part of the criticism, the Journal Sentinel and Daily Kos are focusing on the 2006 fall election, when Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen defeated Democrat Kathleen Falk by less than 10,000 votes statewide.

In a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel posted Tuesday, Nickolaus explained that the reporting gap on the website between ballots cast and votes resulted because not all votes were electronically sent to her by municipalities. The results for ballots cast did not include votes not electronically sent (although all votes were included in final tallies given to the state). After being asked about the situation, Nickolaus added asterisks to the ballots cast results for several past races to indicate they did not include the ballots that were not electronically sent.

However, those ballots WERE counted in the final tallies sent to state elections officials.

And the Journal Sentinel’s own reporting proves that- had the reporter bothered to look in the newspaper’s own archives, rather than just regurgitating claims from a prominent liberal blog. Furthermore, the newspaper’s old reporting shows, there was nothing nefariousness about the fact that some votes were not electronically sent to Nickolaus. And the fact they weren’t was not her fault.

In September 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Scott Williams reported that the 2006 election saw some confusion because some communities were using new voting machines. In addition, the City of Waukesha reported returns to Nickolaus’ office in the wrong column, which her staff then had to correct. The problem derived from a municipality, not Nickolaus’ office. She fixed the problem.

The Journal Sentinel reported that the new technology- touch screen voting machines – caused divisions in the county because different municipalities used different machines.

Menomonee Falls and Mukwonago used a different brand of equipment than others in the county. Thus, those two communities did not file the election returns electronically with Nickolaus’ office in that election, which included the Attorney General race, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Furthermore, that year the county reported its results later than normal, but the newspaper attributed that delay to the Menomonee Falls and Mukwonago situations – as well as the City of Waukesha’s reporting mistake – not to Nickolaus (yet the delays and other glitches that occurred in that race are now being attributed by some bloggers to Nickolaus.)

In fact, the story notes that Nickolaus warned communities that problems might occur if they didn’t all use the same type of voting machines. But one municipal clerk was quoted saying, “I was not going to let anybody tell me what equipment I was going to buy.”

This all didn’t stop the outraged Daily Kos, one of the most biased and prominent liberal blogs in the country. The Daily Kos demanded that the Department of Justice investigate. The newspaper attacked Van Hollen, tying him to Gov. Scott Walker, and implying that the election might have been rigged in Van Hollen’s favor.

Wisconsin liberal blogs picked up the narrative, also inferring that nefariousness had occurred. And the Journal Sentinel highlighted it all. For no reason and with complete disregard to the facts.

This time the scene is Chicago. Bob Oehmen, who calls himself PackerBackerBob, is carrying a sign that reads “the GOP hearts the KKK” and offers 1 million dollars to anyone who can prove him wrong. If that’s not enough, he then challenges those who disagree to a fight and promises to make the “wussy motherf**ckers” and “teabaggers” suffer.

As Rebel Pundit notes, on Daily Kos he actually declares war on all righties, neo-cons, “teabaggers”, and libertarians.

Warning: He’s also “the meanest damn liberal in the land”. You’ll practically tremble in fear.

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Make no mistake: this is a calculated “astroturf“ intimidation campaign by the well-funded and frightened-for-their-political-lives institutional left to quash dissenting voices. It’s what they do.

What was ABC News’ response?  Not standing up for free speech and the 1^st Amendment.  Not sticking by their original invitation.  Not standing up for diversity of opinion.

Instead, on Saturday, ABC News issued an official statement that was immediately heralded as a victory by the anti-free speech forces on the left:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s   opinions.

George Stephanoplous quickly tweeted, “Breitbart NOT on ABC network broadcast http://bit.ly/bgkseJ.”

I can state with absolute certainty that the verbal pitch to me to participate was punctuated by the opportunity to appear as part of ABC News’ broadcast television for the night.  I was also aware that the majority of my participation – seven long hours – would be online.

Here is the email from ABC confirming their invitation for me to participate in their online and network broadcast election night coverage:

Andrew,

So great speaking with you, and I cannot thank you enough for joining us in Arizona on election night. We truly appreciate it.

NY is booking your travel right now, and want to make sure your name on your ID reads “Andrew Breitbart”.

I really look forward to meeting you, and would love to take you out to lunch or dinner before our election coverage.

See below about ABC New’s coverage on election night.

Cheers, and will see you soon.

XXXX

XXXX XXXX

Producer

ABC News

ABC News is conducting a live event from Phoenix, Arizona for our election night special on Tuesday, November 2nd 2010. I am looking for political figures and newsmakers to appear in our Town Hall style panel.

ABC News is providing live coverage of the midterm elections hosted by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos in New York, and correspondents across the country.

ABC News has partnered with Facebook and The Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University to live stream the entire event on abcnews.com, ABC News Now and Facebook.

The Town Hall is hosted by ABC correspondent David Muir and Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, as well an ASU student leader.

The audience will consist of 150 students equipped with laptops and Ipads who will participate in online political conversations.

The issues include health care, the economy, immigration, terrorism, and the environment. We will have panelists who will contribute to these conversations remotely from Washington, DC, New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA.

This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network, abcnews.com, ABC News Now, and ABC News Radio.

The show will be live on the web and ABC News Now as well as on the network from 4:00pm till 11:00pm MST.

We would love for you to be a part of our program, and please let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

I am booking the guests for the event and will be in Phoenix starting Thursday, October 28th.

Feel free to email me back or call me at the following number with any questions.

Thanks so much,

XXXX XXXX

Producer

ABC News

In addition to the two times that an ABC News producer confirms in the email that I will be part of ABC News’ network broadcast, David Ford of ABC News confirmed to Media Matters that I “will be one of many voices on our air” on election night.

I was promised no specific amount of airtime, nor payment for my analysis, but was told that I would be a part of the broadcast coverage in addition to participating in the online event, as the email above clearly reveals.

And, clearly, I was being asked to give analysis – or, was ABC News paying for me to fly to Arizona and to foot my hotel bill so that I could perform avant-garde interpretative dance?

Apparently, a Daily Kos blogger has also been asked to participate. Daily Kos, as many of you may know, has been widely discredited for spreading malicious falsehoods and political extremism. It’s creator Markos Moulitsas is currently promoting his book, whose title says it all: American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right.

I do not ask that the Daily Kos bloggernot get air-time. To the contrary, I have a long history of trying to bring as many voices to the fore as humanly possible. One need look no further than my creating the Huffington Post – a project that’s underlying politics I never embraced – with Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer in 2005.

During its creation I explained to many bewildered observers: “Bringing my former boss and longtime friend Arianna’s intriguing friends to the blogosphere, the ultimate level playing field, makes perfect sense to me, and I am thrilled to be committed to such a groundbreaking project. Will my pals on the right have a place to offer their two cents at the Huffington Post? Absolutely. Will I agree with everyone’s written word? Of course not. But that’s precisely the point. May the best ideas win.”

This is not really about “me.”   This is about a full-fledged assault on the 1^st Amendment and free speech.  It is an unabashed attempt to win by intimidating a news organization for daring to have a dissenting voice on its broadcast. The same forces just prevailed against Juan Williams, and Erick Erickson’s CNN gig was met with the same anti-free speech, anti-opposing viewpoints full-court press from the institutional left. Again, it’s what they do.

The Internet is the revolution of our time and new media has benefited democracy by expanding the number of people who can influence the political process. My Big sites (Big Government, Big Hollywood, Big Peace, and Big Journalism) have expanded the voice and power of the center-right, and in particular, the Tea Party movement.

As is evidenced by George Soros’s $1 million dollar re-investment in Media Matters, which led the harassment campaign to silence center-left commentator Juan Williams, the political left is doubling down on its “silence your critics” strategy.

I am no stranger to this particular kind of tactic. In fact, my business has been built on the premise of fighting it. Boo, George Soros! Bring it on, John Podesta!

Is this trend of silencing dissenting voices not wholly obvious even to the untrained eye?

I created Big Hollywood for my conservative friends in liberal Hollywood to fight back against this most un-American practice. We are making up for a lot of lost ground in a very short period of time. That is why more and more voices are starting to express themselves and there are more bodies coming out of the closet. These victories motivate me to keep the pressure on.

On Sunday Big Journalism broke the troubling KTVA (Anchorage) voicemail story that showed reporters and producers plotting how to smear GOP candidate Joe Miller. The real story here is that the Big sites have broken huge stories that have affected this election cycle, including ones that show an unhealthy collusion between the political left and America’s major newsrooms. Perhaps on election eve, as I prepare to head to Phoenix to participate — one way or another — in ABC News’s coverage, it’s no surprise that we are ending this news cycle with a clash on this bitterly contested front.

Taken on its own terms, this observation gives progressives a very narrow window of time in which to operate – something the Daily Kos appears to have recognized, in a rare moment of lucidity:

“Of course, we can’t make such a simplistic argument.  We don’t think that more government is always best.  In fact, even arguing over the size of the government is folding to a conservative narrative.  But how can we begin to discuss politics in the political world of today without tripping over conservative buzz words?  The honest truth is, we can’t.”

But there is hope for the progressive movement, according to our anonymous writer, in the following:

“1.) The blogosphere more-or-less is ours.  The right-wing attempts to match the left’s web presence has largely looked like our attempt to match their radio work.  The web belongs to the young, and the young, at least for now, are with us.

2.) Satire is ours.  Jon Stewart likes to deny his real-world impact, calling his show comedy.  And it is.  But it has great impact none-the-less.  Stewart and Colbert have made a huge difference by exposing fraud and corruption.  And most of this has been on the right.  Even when they come at us, they come from the left.  That kind of work, over time, builds values in the viewers that move them toward the left, like Limbaugh’s daily listeners eventually become Republicans.  And the right has fallen prey to attempting their version of political satire.  And, as you probably know, those attempts have been incredible failures.

3.) Academia remains reality-based, and that is good for us.  Although I think the accusations of campus “liberal bias” are greatly exaggerated, issues like human rights, equality, and environmentalism are clear values of the liberal arts community.  And these values are more than just issues for progressives.  They go a long way in pointing toward a framework for thinking progressively.”

Now, obviously, there are a few things that strike me as a bit foolish about this. For one thing, calling Academia reality-based strikes me as similar to calling Marvin the Martian carbon-based.

However, there is definitely truth to some of this, and if the reaction to conservative articles about youth politics are any guide, the Left is especially defensive about the first point. Moreover, also judging by the comments left on those same articles, a lot of conservatives are in no hurry to reach out to youth voters, because they think young people are just a bunch of hedonistic little brats who are too dumb/inexperienced to understand anything (which didn’t seem to stop Ronald Reagan from winning a majority of the youth vote in 1984). Small wonder the Left is so confident.

However, they shouldn’t be. Much as progressives like to cite a recent Pew Poll showing that the younger generation inclines naturally towards social liberalism and government activism, two things stand out about that poll: Firstly, at the time it was taken, most of the massive failures in the Obama administration hadn’t happened yet. Secondly, the poll itself acknowledged that while the ideologies of young voters seemingly favored Democrats, those voters were increasingly becoming disenchanted with Democrats, and Republican registration was rising, even if active self-identification was not (according to the poll, youth voter registration currently stands at 54% Democrat, 40% Republican, up from 62%-30% after the 2008 election). Moreover, as I have noted elsewhere, the youth vote is not a homogenous group, and treating it as one is fundamentally mistaken. As such, I am not going to try to make broad statements about “the youth vote” here, but will rather confine my observations to what is seemingly the most problematic group of young people for the Right, IE college students.

It is undeniable that the Left has is much better at communicating with this group, and enjoys more institutional advantages than the Right has. That doesn’t necessarily translate to all youth voters – Scott Brown did fairly well among the youth in the aggregate – but the trickle-down effect of collegiate elitism is still something to be concerned about. So let me address the reasons why communication with college-age millennials, especially the kind that watch the Dailiy Show, has been so much easier for the Left.

This success at communication comes primarily from the second point cited by the Kos author above – this is a generation whose educated members, perhaps more than any other, have gotten their political views from intentionally ironic, biting and superfluously intellectual commentary. Moreover, because this generation is one of the more secular in recent memory, it lacks a moral compass rooted in rigid, religiously-based rules, though it hardly lacks a moral compass generally, and this is especially true among the collegiate lot.

This leads to an attitude that I have often observed in fellow young voters of this type, an attitude which believes that intellectual correctness and moral intuition are frequently (if not necessarily) at odds, and that the truth should win. To put it bluntly, this is a generation that would prefer to elect someone who is (by conventional standards) evil but brilliant than someone who is morally good hearted but stupid. This is at the root of the GOP’s communications problem, for the GOP has, especially in recent years, hitched its flag to the notion of being intellectually populist while at the same time being morally absolutist. Of course, this need not be the only strategy the GOP or the conservative movement use – Bill Buckley is an instructive exception – but its existence is a challenge.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this – to the extent that it is homogenous, my generation’s intellectual class is extremely different from previous ones at the cultural level, and some in ways that are worthy of criticism. I’m going to deal with two ways in which this difference manifests – firstly, the differences in culture, and secondly, the differences in demographics.

First, the cultural element. In his book The Battle, Arthur Brooks talks about how “earned success” makes people happier than just getting lots of unearned cash/goodies. But this is a generation that – as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal points out – has come to expect cash/goodies, unearned or otherwise, because of its systematic rearing under the concept of “self-esteem,” a concept with which the intellectual class is especially saturated, given that they excelled under an education system based around it. At any rate, everyone is a winner in this generation, or at least everyone thinks they are. What is more, as many exasperated conservative commentators continually point out, this is a generation that feels entitled, that refuses to make the usual tradeoffs, and that views itself as irrefutably superior to others, for no reason that these commentators can understand. “How,” these baby boomer conservatives ask, “can you ask us to make common cause with people like that?!”

Easily. For one thing, note these passages in the article cited above:

“Some research studies indicate that the millennial generation’s great expectations stem from feelings of superiority. Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute and MonsterTrak, an online careers site, conducted a research study of 18- to 28-year-olds and found that nearly half had moderate to high superiority beliefs about themselves.”

“Millennials also want things spelled out clearly. Many flounder without precise guidelines but thrive in structured situations that provide clearly defined rules and the order that they crave. Managers will need to give step-by-step directions for handling everything from projects to voice-mail messages to client meetings.”

“Justin Pfister, the founder of Open Yard, an online retailer of sports equipment, believes he and his fellow millennials will resist having their expectations deflated. If employers fail to provide the opportunities and rewards millennials seek, he says, they’re likely to drop out of the corporate world as he did and become entrepreneurs.”

Now, to avoid seeming like the pushy millennial I am, I’m not going to pretend that these passages aren’t problematic. They are. However, I humbly submit that politically, they are less problematic than they first appear. Firstly, like all idiotic Leftist schemes, the “self-esteem” education appears to have had an unintended consequence, ie fostering a sense of superiority (as opposed to equality). Leaving aside the issue whether such a feeling is warranted, let me invite the reader to consider how any successful millennial with a feeling like this will react to progressive taxation, capital gains taxes, or any other redistribution of wealth. My guess is that the response will be apopleptic: “How dare that inferior bunch of bureaucrats tell me how to spend my money!”

What about the “precise guidelines” and “structured situations” element? Maybe I’m being too clever by half, but this sounds more like the sort of thing Russell Kirk praised, or like Friedrich von Hayek’s rule of law. Millennials want predictability and order, and it only takes one look at the federal tax code to know how bad the institutional Left is at providing that, and barely half a glance at any Leftist doctrine of permanent revolution to know how much worse the intellectual Left is. This is a view fundamentally at odds with an economy dominated by favors, irrational dealmaking and cronyism of the type you see in Venezuela, Bolivia and Chicago.

Finally, what about that last quote? While the heightened expectations may be unrealistic, is there anything wrong with trying to create an environment where those expectations can be met through entrepreneurship? Absolutely not. Moreover, do you think an entrepreneurial generation that sets out to meet these high expectations will be able to tolerate half the inefficiency that the government and organized labor foists on businesses to prevent them from meeting high expectations? I don’t think so.

Having dealt with the cultural differences, then, this brings me to the most substantial obstacle the conservative movement faces with respect to the millennial generation – its demographics, a problem which afflicts more than just the college-age population. There’s no two ways about it – this generation is demographically diverse. As the Center for American Progress (for once) aptly notes:

“The diversity of this generation is as impressive as its size. Right now, Millennial adults are 60 percent white and 40 percent minority (18 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black, 5 percent Asian, and 3 percent other). And the proportion of minority Millennial adults will rise to 41 percent in 2012, 43 percent in 2016, and 44 percent in 2020 (21 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black, 6 percent Asian, and 3 percent other). This shift should make the Millennial generation even more firmly progressive as it fully enters the electorate, since minorities are the most strongly progressive segment among Millennials.”

The last sentence will be especially ominous if it remains true through the foreseeable future, though I remain unconvinced that it will simply because it strikes me yet another oversimplification, and one that undermines the Leftist narrative of youthful enthusiasm more than it helps it. If it is true that minorities are more progressive than whites (and according to most demographic measures, they are), and if it is also true that minority Millennials are more progressive than white Millennials (which they apparently are), then the progressive advantage among young people can surely be chalked up more to old-fashioned racial politics than to any unique ability to speak to the young. Thus, if we view the younger generation as nothing but a collection of immutable racial groups, then the question of how to appeal to them as young people becomes completely irrelevant, since the demographic argument implicitly assumes that their racial identity takes precedence over their generational culture.

But it doesn’t. Why? Because, according to the same article, white millennials are significantly more progressive than their wider racial group traditionally would be. Logically, this indicates that there is a generation gap, and I would argue that we must first learn to speak to millennials generally before we can tailor our message to specific demographic subgroups. It is important to bridge racial gaps on the Right, but the question of how to do that is distinct from the question of how to bridge the generation gap, and should be treated as such. Moreover, the fact that there is a generation gap may give the Right some hope. After all, if white millennials can be persuaded to buck previous trends by swinging further to the Left, then there is every reason to believe it is possible for minority millennials to buck previous trends in the future by swinging further to the Right.

Whether this is likely, and how it might be done is another story. I wish I had an easy answer for it, but in the absence of a holy grail of youth outreach, such an answer is unlikely to be forthcoming. I will say that I think that treating them with respect rather than tokenism will prove to be successful, given how contemptuous millennials are of artificial differences (ie differences not based on their presumptively superior merit), and for that reason I suspect that the effectiveness of classically liberal language about color blindness will only increase in the coming years. Another area that may prove to be effective is the sort of locality-based campaigning that made the New Right of the 70’s and the 80’s such an effective force. A minority voter in Scarsdale is not the same person as a minority voter in Harlem, though both may vote Democratic, and if we are to sway their votes, we must familiarize ourselves with the issues that compel them to vote Democratic as Scarsdale and Harlem residents, which could very well be different issues. Under such a system, crafting a nationally applicable outreach strategy for minorities would not only be unnecessary, but impossible at best, and insulting and stereotypical at worst. Still, the problem of conservative outreach with young and minority voters isn’t going to solve itself. And make no mistake; I am not of the school that says we should compromise our principles to do it. Those principles may need restatement, but not revision. Whether that restatement is carried off successfully will be the enduring question when it comes time to woo my generation.

The silly theory, which I called “doubtful,” solicited a reaction that surprised even me.  Besides Robert Gibbs himself tweeting about it, I scored the lefty trifecta: MediaMatters, DailyKos and a blogger for Salon.com all responded.

A rash of hysterical e-mails also came through.  Consider this gem:

Really Mr. Olson, REALLY? While I’m aware you wingnuts are not the brightest bulbs around, and the fact you are associated with the huge steaming pile of moron known as Breitbart indicates you are quite possibly mentally retarded…

Or this:

God, you are one dumbf–k.

Did your pal, Dickybird suck your brain out your toe?

Lastly:

Hey jackass,

Will you be doing a story about how you took Robert Gibbs wearing a bracelet in support of a little girl with cancer and twisted it into a bulls–t, partisan rant?

Partisan rant?  Please.  That’s the most offensive accusation leveled here.  If anything, it was an American, pro-freedom pondering.

The very fact that Robert Gibbs and the radical left felt the need to respond to a theory I myself called “doubtful” shows how sensitive they are at this point.  The votes don’t appear to be there for ObamaCare and they ain’t happy about it.

Or are they growing overly sensitive about their connection top White House visitor and Enforcement Czar Andy Stern?

The pressure all the above are putting on moderate Democrats is immense.  SEIU has pledged to support Democratic challengers to incumbents who oppose ObamaCare.  Michigan Pro-Life Democrat Bart Stupak already has an intra-party opponent.  Thankfully, for the good of his country’s unborn, he at this point is standing tall.  We’ll have to see if that continues to be the case or if the pressure is more than he can bear.

So Robert – or can I call you Bob? – I said a prayer with my son for the girl with cancer.  But I also said a prayer for our country and that it has leaders who, like our Founding Fathers, believe rights come from our Creator and not from our government.

We’ll have to see how each are answered.