College Republicans Still Acting Like College Republicans

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Here’s the Dallas Morning News:

An SMU junior and chairman of Texas College Republicans resigned his post this week after a video was posted of him describing getting “hammered,” “hooking up” with a young woman and calling political opponents a homosexual slur.

He also calls his political opponents “nerds,” which, I’m told, is a word people used to use to make fun of other people in the late 1980s. The context is that this was part of an endorsement speech for Alex Schriver, a leading candidate for chairman of the College Republicans, who was so enthused by the speech he posted it on his website. Now, one of Schriver’s opponents—presumably a nerd—has turned it into an attack ad, complete with scary background music and the requisite white-text-on-black-background. Witness:

This is more or less business-as-usual for the College Republicans, who for decades have operated as basically a training camp for future GOP operatives (Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, and Roger Stone are all alums). Here’s what Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote six years ago:

[W]hen I talked to College Republicans in North Carolina, I heard constant, ridiculous allegations thrown at rivals within the organizations. This rival had an illegitimate son in Tennessee, that one paid for an abortion for some poor girl from Missouri. When I asked an innocent question about a network of political consultants in Raleigh, one College Republican stopped me imediately: “Surely you must have heard,” he said ominously, his drawl thick, “about them bisexual orgies.

For what it’s worth, Charles McCaslin, the former Texas College Republicans chairman, has since apologized to any gays, women—and, yes, nerds—he may have offended.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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