Why Meghan McCain is Doing No Favors for Young Republicans

Just two weekends prior, I had the honor and privilege of traveling to New Orleans (in particular, Jefferson Parish) for my paternal grandmother’s 90th birthday. And nothing summed up a weekend full of beignets, champagne, po-boys, snowballs and an impromptu trip to the French Quarter more than getting in touch with my assorted uncles, aunts and cousins who came from all over the country (mostly from the W side of the Mississippi River) to celebrate a momentous occasion. And for Baba, it was a pleasure to see her again and reminisce about all the great times my larger paternal family have experienced…with academic, professional and cultural successes a plenty under the Stanley name, while also reminding me of how Papa would have loved to experience this tremendous occasion.

At the same time, catching up with my father’s side of the family also gave me reflection on how far American youth have fallen these days. For the most part, my extended family — both paternal and maternal — has always taken a flurry of grand measures to achieve success of varying degrees. For them, success did not come overnight. Yours truly making the Dean’s List was not easy to accomplish. Neither were my grandfathers’ various business ventures. Or my parents’ challenging but very successful relationship. Or my uncles’ professional triumphs — whether at ivory towers situated in Florida and Pennsylvania or in various industrial trades from electrician to oilman and everything in between. Unfortunately, the recession has not necessarily been kind to the sort of hardworking, aspiring, responsible Americans that should be cherished as proud American patriots instead of ridiculed as “wet blankets” for the elite. And for Republicans and American conservatism at large, it seems to be easier to simply grab up the fountain of youth instead of having to earn your stripes.

Enter Meghan McCain. Since the failed presidential candidacy of her father, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the younger McCain has emerged as more than just a towel girl for the media establishment — the same one that aches for the day when Republicans will gladly cast those “heartless” conservatives aside in favor of supposedly “progressive” young voters and minorities. Now, the media establishment is attempting to portray Meghan as the defacto voice of young Republicans. The media’s argument for “freshening” the GOP is simple. Ditch scripted shows for reality shows. Listen to more Top 40 music. Act like a “valley girl” or “tool”. Do fundraisers at trashy clubs. Don’t waste time on regular churchgoers. Tout Republicans in the Obamastration. Portray anything classy and timeless (e.g. a pair of pearls, craft beer, home cooking, American-made goods) as “stuffy”. Believe that playing sports is all about money. The never-ending list goes on and on.

And I’m already yearning for my old self back. I can’t believe I just threw who I am out the window just a few moments ago. Now, I’m taking it back. Viva Poppy and Papa, underrated indie music, great entertainment, quality documentaries, broad ambitions, good cousins, the (real) Tea Party, classy American style, sportsmanship based on skill and determination, less is more, and genteel fiscal conservatism and limited government. Down with the lost generation.

Meghan McCain, who often self-styles herself as a “progressive Republican”, and is known to point out that her “friends” agree with her that the Tea Party is divisive and such, is a poor fit for the Grand Old Party in many ways. If only we could just follow her advice, we can win back all the suburbs (East Coast, West Coast, Midwest and Sunbelt, too), all the independents (Reagan Democrats, the business community), and all the traditional Republicans (paleoconservative Midwest and libertarian West, anyone?) we lost in recent years. Because that worked so well for her father in 2008, so well I nearly bolted to the even more disastrous current president or a third-party candidate for the same reason I would have backed conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth in 2010 had I been an actual Arizona resident — that’s what happens when you side with your enemy in backing a multi-billion dollar bailout that was used to dole out bonuses and acquire another large “too big to fail” bank, among other injustices. So much for all the warnings by the grassroots.

Granted, I am not a social conservative and often view legislation dealing with gay marriage, abortion and such as both an affront to limited government and a tactic used by Republicrats and phony populists who often pretend such values to hide from voters their fiscally reckless votes for TARP, increasing the debt ceiling many times over, the Bushama tax deal, cap-and-pork, and the recent Obahner debt deal. Not to mention an endless stream of nation-building, affronts to our civil rights and constitutional liberties, and bureaucratic oddities not worthy of being considered limited government. But Meghan McCain is doing herself no favors, calling on her allies and enemies to get along while coming out in favor of stifling such independence for those who disagree with her viewpoints and ideals, as evidenced in these remarks to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell:

“I think it’s important to note that Michele Bachmann is not a leader, and she’s not the leader of the Republican Party. Michele Bachmann in my opinion is no better than a poor man’s Sarah Palin, and I think the fact that MSNBC and Fox elected not to run this is admirable to the kind of journalism Fox and MSNBC is airing; I think CNN should be ashamed of themselves for airing this. It is one rogue woman who couldn’t even look into the camera directly, and I take none of it seriously, and I think if the Tea Party wants to put a candidate up to give a response, why don’t they have someone like Rand Paul who was elected on the Tea Party platform give that?”

- Meghan McCain, on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell (MSNBC), January 26, 2011

So Meghan McCain believes that she has a right to explain her views? I have no problem with that. Meghan is protected by the First Amendment for the very same reason I am protected by the First Amendment, so that way I can explain my viewpoints to a broad audience without interference from the government. But CNN is not allowed to show independence in journalism by showing Bachmann’s Tea Party response following the State of the Union last January? CNN is a private organization that has a right to broadcast whatever news coverage it wants, however serious or sensational it may be, and given the venue by which Meghan expressed the quote above, it sounded somewhat akin to a defense of MSNBC (conflict of interest, anyone?). Meghan works for The Daily Beast, therefore CNN could care less about whether or not broadcasting a Tea Party response is acceptable and would just go by its own logic as opposed to taking marching orders from its rivals.

And as for Michele Bachmann, she is not perfect, but is far from a “poor man’s Sarah Palin” — having come a long way from her turbulent McCarthy-esque tirade to MSNBC “host” Chris Matthews in 2008 that nearly cost Bachmann her north suburban Twin Cities seat, a seat the Republican establishment abandoned after that fateful rant. Having actually seen Bachmann in person as an alternate delegate at the Texas GOP convention last year, she has clearly earned her place in a Tea Party rostrum that also includes Rand Paul and his legendary father, Ron Paul, as well as Mike Lee, Jim DeMint, Ron Johnson, Justin Amash, Marco Rubio, Jason Chaffetz, various governors across the country from Scott Walker to Chris Christie to Rick Scott, and a flurry of other citizen-lawmakers changing the course of American politics. And no, you’re not talking to a bitter “old man” — I’m just close to 25 year old with a personal life that renders itself more akin to a poorly conceived bastard child of Stuff White People Like and The Official Preppy Handbook (with some Aspie and a lot of survivalist mentality thrown in) as opposed to the sort of slanted “reality” exposed to impressionable youth on MTV.

And speaking of MTV, when Meghan tries to find such notable youth who are willing to identify with the one-third minority of youth that voted against Obama, all paths seem to lead towards the sort of “role model” you wouldn’t want your kids to associate with. Just take Meghan McCain’s interview last year with the most infamous member of the most overrated show on the worst cable channel, Nicole Polizzi (aka  “Snooki”) of MTV’s vastly overrated garbage dump, Jersey Shore, in which Snooki came out as having supported Meghan’s father in 2008 and, after coming out against a tax on indoor tanning related to the recent ObamaCare fiasco, came up with this noble explanation:

“To be honest with you, I’m not really a Republican or a Democrat. I actually signed up as an independent, just because I don’t want to pick any side and also I don’t really know a lot about politics. I only know politics about, like, you know, tanning and being a Guidette. So when I saw it was Obama and McCain, to be honest with you, the only reason why I voted for your father was because he was really cute and I liked when he did his speeches.”

- Nicole Polizzi (aka “Snooki”), via The Daily Beast, July 11, 2010

In essence, Snooki voted for John McCain on the good charm of the candidate’s appearance and debating skills instead of policy. This is a textbook example of how not to vote for a candidate; it is the same excuse as voting for Sarah Palin or Bill Clinton because of their luck of being telegenic. And for the record, wasn’t a certain U.S. Senator and professor from Illinois supposed to be the one with the “upper hand” on looks and debating, as said by many across the political spectrum? Seems about right given that Meghan McCain started off the article with the sentence, “I watched—and loved—every second of the first season of The Jersey Shore” — wasn’t it just called “Jersey Shore” without the “the“? But this is not the only brush with MTV the McCains have experienced; the elder McCain reportedly earned an endorsement from another MTV “star” — Heidi Montag of The Hills, whose “show” is another train wreck that lasted well beyond its shelf life — a trait that not surprisingly can be expected of Jersey Shore, a show that is not only a key reason why other countries hate the United States, but is also a disgrace to the great state of New Jersey and its natives — including my father and most of his siblings. Thank God Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) had the audacity to sound the alarm last year on this disaster of a show.

But for what it’s worth, why should celebrity endorsements even matter? After all, many of my preferred actors, TV stars, musicians and other pop culture staples — you can see them on my Facebook preferences if you are lucky enough to know yours truly — backed one Barack Obama to one degree or another in 2008. And I still have tremendous respect for their talents, even if our political currents take us in vastly different directions. All thanks to an important lesson learned from my father: to never confuse one’s acting, singing or writing ability with their politics. Because you judge a singer by just their musical talent, and you judge a politician by their policies only. For the record, I strongly defended the writers in the Writer’s Guild of America strike in 2007 — because they are the ones who power American creativity, not some overzealous executive bent on ruining American entertainment just for the fun of earning a lofty bonus. And also for the record, when it comes to celebrities, Meghan McCain’s apparent fandom for Jersey Shore and the shallow MTV crowd is not helping her case, particularly among forward-thinking suburban parents who want their daughters to grow up to be professional success stories and not D-list reality TV vixens from shows that are killing your brain cells. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of these suburban parents voted for Obama in 2008 simply because of the community organizer’s own family values being fairly superior in comparison to McCain’s inherited beer empire.

Fortunately, there is more to life than fixating the future of the GOP and American conservatism on one particular person. The true face of right-leaning youth is found in different parts of the country, from the tony suburbs of Philadelphia to the downtrodden streets of Detroit, from the resilient shores of the Gulf Coast to the rolling prairies of the Midwest, from the rugged terrain of the Rockies to the barren deserts of the Southwest, and from the colonial enclaves of the original thirteen colonies to the breathtaking shores of California, there are young conservatives — some of whom have been Republicans their whole life, others who are independent conservatives, third-party conservatives or even conservative Democrats, and others who backed Barack Obama in 2008 but have since fallen out of favor with their once-promising choice. These are young people who know their future is at stake and that all their hopes and aspirations have been tempered in the face of an eternal struggle to survive. Even if some of them end up backing the current occupant of the White House next year as a mere protest vote, they know that the Democratic Party has fallen far from the likes of the Clintons and the Kennedys, and that even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid don’t fit the bill of the emerging Democratic grassroots and establishment, which is more apt to supporting the likes of George McGovern and Walter Mondale.

In essence, young Republicans and conservatives are represented by aspiring, creative, independent and driven individuals who see endless debt-ceiling games, about faces on foreign policy, and unconstitutional endeavors into one’s personal lives as the exact opposite of policy that is meant to be effective, sensible and empowering the individual and their ambitions, not “writers” who only become famous because of their family name and a campaign memoir that earned middling reviews from Amazon.com customers — as evidenced with Meghan McCain, who many Americans would never have heard of if her father was not a one-time failed presidential candidate from a state that even came close to voting for his opponent in 2008. And the same can be said of Bristol Palin and her mother Sarah, Chelsea Clinton and her father Bill, the Bush daughters and their father, Ronald Reagan’s own children (Ron Jr., anyone?), and the various ancestors of the Kennedy clan. Better yet, why should being in a political dynasty even matter? Isn’t the American Dream supposed to mean making it on your own terms and not someone else’s good fortune?

Of course, there are ways that Meghan McCain can improve her credentials. She can further explain what her views on the Tea Party really are. Maybe she can try to find rapport and common ground with young conservatives who share my ideals. And I would gladly ask her a simple question: aren’t there any better role models who are Republican or right-leaning you can point to that are not on the dark side of life? But as long as she is continuing to take the path she has chosen and continue drinking the political establishment’s tonic (not to mention giving off the assumption that pandering to the worst elements of American youth is the way for the GOP to go in the future), she will never be taken seriously as a political writer, better yet a “face” of the Republican Party or American conservatism in general. In the meantime, I will still continue to remind myself that there are talented, deserving young people in America who have better things to do than just offer silly platitudes and kiss up to the pro-big government media monopoly that is neither pro-American nor sane and intelligent. The day when a majority of reasonable young people receive the attention they deserve from the political world is a day we can all look forward to, and I look forward to that day.

And yes, today, Poppy and Papa — wherever they are — are smiling from above, and proud of all I have done in life.

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