Attention Young Liberals

Washington Post ^ | 02/14/05 | Howard Kurtz

[Pikamax]

Attention Young Liberals

College campuses are widely viewed as liberal bastions, with towns such as Berkeley, Cambridge and Madison used as shorthand for left-wing communities of faculty and students.

So why is a Washington think tank funneling money to universities to encourage liberal journalism? Isn't that a bit like pumping sand into the Mojave Desert?

"We're not winning the battle of ideas on campus," says David Halperin, who is running the project for the Center for American Progress. Conservatives "have this insurgency mentality, even though they run the world."

"We're being outhustled," says Halperin's colleague Ben Hubbard. "We want to cultivate the media stars, much like the right has done with Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'Souza."

Toward that end, the center will give $750,000 to nine liberal campus publications at such places as Princeton, Dartmouth and the University of Wisconsin, and help launch four at the universities of Michigan, Chicago, Kentucky and Ohio State. This is dwarfed by the more than $30 million a year that they estimate conservative campus organizations receive from such groups as the Young America's Foundation and Leadership Institute.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

the site will offer policy guidance. "We'll call them crib sheets, but they're talking points," says Halperin, a former Clinton White House speechwriter.

I'd say Kurtz buried the lead. The real story is this: fat cat liberals spread propaganda through bought-and-paid-for campus "newspapers."

[ClearCase_guy]

We're winning.

[Bahbah]

Conservatives "have this insurgency mentality, even though they run the world.

Not only are we winning, but we run the world ;)

[wizardoz]

Good luck turning Lynn Stewart into the liberal Ann Coulter.

[HamiltonJay]

Liberals don't get it, they are losing because they have lost the battle in terms of ideas... they just keep thinking if we explain them one more time better we'll win... we just aren't articulating our stands well enough, or loud enough....

NO, we understand your ideas, we hear your ideas, and we reject them completely. No smoother toungue will change this conclusion.

[ladiesview61]

College kids aren't stupid! They get it now because there are other options for getting information...not just the "major networks"! They got talk radio and the Internet! It's great to see so many young conservatives on campuses now who are proud to be conservative.

[TaxRelief]

We're winning.

Are we winning, or is this a conservative "upswing"?

History is consistent in one respect: Each generation rebels against the previous generation.

The only logical way to reject the hippies of yesteryear is to taunt them with the conservative mantra. Are today's kids embracing conservatism just to oppose the authority figures in their lives?

If the new campus conservatism is the latest social revolution, then the offspring of today's college students may go full cycle, back to liberalism--perish the thought!

[ClearCase_guy]

I wouldn't make too much of that -- each generation rebels slightly differently.

The hippies embraced the politics of Stalin and Trotsky. Such politics are now rejected by the majority of young people. Do you really think that a later generation will "re-discover" Marxism and embrace its teaching?

I suspect that a new form of rebellion will be sought. Marxism dies when the last hippie professor dies. It ain't coming back.

[TaxRelief]

Do you really think that a later generation will "re-discover" Marxism and embrace its teaching?

It has already, insiduously, withstood the test of time: Yes, it will re-emerge.