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Campus Tactics

UPDATE - I’m collecting stories from College Democrats for anecdotes to include in my book and to inform my views about the organization, which I did not participate in while I was an undergrad (lo those many years ago). I’m collecting those responses over at Daily Kos, or feel free to email me directly with your personal experiences with the college dems. I want to know:

  • Why you did (or did not) participate in the college democrats,
  • Whether or not they were effective in your area (be specific), and
  • Finally I want to know how you think College Democrats could be improved as an organization.

==================

So I feel somewhat obligated to talk about this since its actually getting national media attention (courtesy of Drudge).

As per usual, College Republicans, this time at NYU, have come up with a controversial activity to bump up their visibility and promote one of their issues. Outrage du jour is an illegal immigrant hunt on campus. Kinda reminiscent of Monty Python’s Olympic Hide and Seek final, but a little racist and xenophobic.

NYU Progressives are responding by organizing a counter protest via FaceBook.

I don’t want to beat an old horse here - I’ve criticized college dems a lot - so let me just pose some questions (and I’m genuinely looking for answers). In particular I would love to hear from you if you are a college democrat reading this site:

  1. Is this a lose-lose situation for the college dems? Won’t anything we do just give the College Republicans more press and increase the effectiveness of their action?
  2. Is that a good enough reason to NOT protest?
  3. Why do we always seem to be playing defense? How come the only time I hear about College Democrats is when they are responding to College Republicans? Why don’t I ever hear about Republican responses to College Dem operations?
  4. It’s interesting that the College Dems organized via FaceBook, but not the College Republicans. Maybe it really is true that left-leaning folks use social networking more (or more effectively for political ends). Agree or disagree?
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February 22nd, 2007 9:59am
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In defense of defence

Submitted by Josh Koenig on Thu, 2007-02-22 17:45.

Since it seems to have become my destiny to stick up for protest… ;)

I’m not so sure that the press implications are big enough to warrant skipping the defensive protest here. While you may be right that it will draw more media attention, I think this is an instance where you’re really talking about the campus as the target audience. Failing to respond would be missing an opportunity for visibility, recruitment, etc. This isn’t really about winning media cycles so much as it is about reaching more students.

That being said, your point about how College Dems seem to always be on the defense seems right. While I’m sure we hear more about College Republicans in part because they’ve got more help — and they do stupid publicity stunts like this — I also think the Dems need to step it up. When I was at NYU during the 2000 election (and when I was hanging around there a lot during the run-up to the war) I didn’t see or hear anything from the College Dems.

In the meantime the College Republicans were posting big, graphic-designed, 11x17” fliers that said Think Big: Bomb Iraq.

It’s a systemic problem for Democrats in general. There’s far too much risk-avoidance. I can think of few Democratic groups that couldn’t benefit from being more aggressive.

B-E Agressive

Submitted by Michael Connery on Fri, 2007-02-23 07:16.
Since it seems to have become my destiny to stick up for protest… ;)

Nothing wrong with that. It was a provocative question - or meant to be.

Your point about the real focus being the campus audience is a good one. I guess, yet again, I’m just looking to see some young activists break out of the mold and do something new and interesting.

The thing that keeps popping up in my head is a kid who spoke at Roots Camp. He was the head of the Minnesota DFL youth outreach, and got campuses to organize around student debt using this big-ass foam body suit made to look like a giant rock. The rock had the word debt inscribed on it, and the young DFLers would go around campus asking folks if they wanted to have their picture taken getting crushed by the debt rock. Apparently it was a huge success in getting students involved in the 2006 campaigns in Minnesota. I wonder if they flickr tagged those photos …

Maybe that kind of thing happens all the time and we just don’t hear about it …

respond in kind

Submitted by shai (not verified) on Sun, 2007-02-25 11:36.

maybe i’m not close enough to the action to appreciate why they can’t do this, but why don’t the leftist groups on campus respond in kind? for example, conduct a series of pranks where they allegedly take part in the illegal immigrant hunt, but the results are increasingly outrageous? e.g., they could (clearly, with the full knowledge and participation of all involved) pretend to “arrest” a well known and liked hispanic professor on campus; or they could “arrest” a student dressed up as one of the pilgrims from the mayflower; or whatever. with the right kind of press management, i think it could be a real poke in the eye for the CR’s.

as far as the line of thinking which says “the best defense is a good offense”, the debt rock is a great idea. these days, ideas for those kinds of stunts are a dime a dozen - you can have a military recruiting fair for war supporters, or a public auction to sell rights to breathe clean air to the highest bidder, or whatever. the ideas aren’t lacking, but perhaps the structures to support and promote them are. for example, wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of organization which, every year around valentine’s day, helped college dem chapters run some kind of valentine’s day stunt? the stunts could be anything from a simple and practical condom distribution event to something more elaborate, like a sex ed. class to which the college repuclians are invited so that they can learn “all the dirty secrets their parents won’t tell them”. the organization could not only help with running the event, but with sufficient funding, pay for materials, and that sort of thing. not every college dem group would bit, but i bet a lot of them would.

Republicans get Punk'd

Submitted by Michael Connery on Sun, 2007-02-25 11:45.

I think that you are right that promotion is the missing link. The Republican pranks get lots of headlines for two reasons - progressive “outrage” feeds the story, for sure, but more importantly, elements of the noise machine like Drudge promote their tactics to a national audience.

Your idea to “punk” the Republican’s own events is a great one.

National Audience vs. Campus Audience

Submitted by Josh Koenig on Tue, 2007-02-27 08:52.

I feel compelled again to point out that campus activism is for a campus audience. Angling our activities to reach/please a “National Audience” can skew our tactics. I think the way to go is not so much to look for external/institutional attention (e.g. Drudge), but rather to continue on the course of decentralized, self-generated, independent publication.

FM can even help. I think making Millennial political action a “beat” makes a lot of sense. We’ll need to build our traffic to really have an impact, but if we can get something from one campus to have an impact somewhere else, that’s worth a lot more than coverage in a newspaper to me.

The goal

Submitted by Michael Connery on Tue, 2007-02-27 10:29.
FM can even help. I think making Millennial political action a “beat” makes a lot of sense. We’ll need to build our traffic to really have an impact,

That’s the goal.

W/r/t the rest of your comment, I wasn’t suggesting that we angle for National Media when “Punking” Republicans. I said that the College Repubs got so much attention because of Drudge and the Noise Machine. Punking Republicans could be a great tactic to redirect the narrative on campus with that campus audience as your primary target.