U alumnus Zach Howell will have a big legacy to uphold as the newly elected national chairman of the College Republican National Committee.
Karl Rove, the last U student to hold a high position in the CRNC, as executive director, became a household name after engineering both of George W. Bush’s successful presidential campaigns and through his tenure as a key adviser through most of Bush’s years in office. His impact on national politics can still be seen and felt almost everywhere, particularly in the use of the term “Rove-style politics”, which has become shorthand for aggressive, sometimes controversial campaign tactics.
Howell, however, doesn’t feel bound to Rove’s approach to politics. Rather, he believes that the Republican Party must chart a new course and form a distinct identity if it is to regain its stature after a string of withering defeats that culminated in 2008 with the election of President Barack Obama.
“(Karl Rove) understands politics as well if not better than almost anybody out there,” said Howell, who interned in 2006 for Congressman Chris Cannon, R-Utah, through the U’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, and graduated last spring. But the CRNC doesn’t have to follow in Rove’s footsteps, as times have changed since he was the executive director, he said.
As chairman of the CRNC, Howell will plan and find funding for initiative and outreach programs on college campuses.
“Our goal at the national office is always just to increase membership and outreach with our campus chapters,” he said.
But while it may sound simple, the task of expanding Republican support among young people will be all the more challenging in the wake of an election that saw roughly 66 percent of voters age 18-29 throw their support behind Obama, according to exit poll data published by The New York Times.
Part of the solution, according to Hinckley Institute Director Kirk Jowers, is finding a message that connects with a younger audience.
“I think the number one issue for young people right now is probably the number one issue for all people, which is the economy,” Jowers said. “But the special focus for young people is watching this incredible debt blowup, because it’s the young people, and maybe even people who aren’t voting, who are ultimately going to have to pay for what their parents and grandparents are doing to them right now.”
Jowers points to a growing sense of unease among voters over rising deficits and government expansion, indicated in recent polls, as an opportunity for Republicans to reclaim popular support on fiscal policy.
Howell said the central thrust of Republican strategy during the Obama era must be dogged emphasis on fiscal prudence. This will separate modern conservatism from the version that prevailed under President Bush, whose policies largely increased the federal deficit, he said.
“We need to communicate our principles better, and more importantly, we need to stick to them,” said Howell, who began his campaign for chairman late last year. “I’ll be the first to admit that our party didn’t live up to its ideals in terms of being the party of responsible government, of being fiscally responsible.”
To regain ground with voters, Howell said he also plans to utilize technology to spread the Republican message much as Democrats did with great success in the most recent election, and said the party needs to catch up in that regard.
Howell said that, contrary to the widely-held stereotype of the bleeding heart college liberal, younger voters historically have split fairly evenly between the two parties, pointing out that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both won the youth vote in their time. Therefore, the problem isn’t an intrinsic liberal bias among young voters, he said, but rather of message clarity and delivery.
“I think the most important thing the party can be doing right now is to advocate a more responsible view of government than the one we’re seeing from our leadership right now,” he said. “The president and Congress, in my view, are taking us down the wrong path and we just need to present an alternative vision.”