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After their second body meeting on the subject, on Tuesday evening the Dems endorsed Senator Russ Feingold’s plan for withdrawal from Iraq within six months of the bill’s passage, defeating the Obama plan by a healthy two-thirds majority of members present. Now they’re planning a big wing ding for March 20–the fourth anniversary of the start of the war–for which they are “pumped.”
At Bwog’s request, Columbia University College Republicans President Chris Kulawik had this response:
“While we’re sure Senator Feingold can take comfort in knowing that his plan has been endorsed by such an influential and important group as the Columbia College Democrats, the Columbia Republicans are waiting to hear directly from leading Republican figures before making any endorsements. Seriously, we recognize that our members have diverse views and, therefore, we do not take any positions. At the same time, we are quite shocked that the College Democrat E-board feels that they have the authority to speak for all their members. How are campus Democrats who do not endorse the Senator’s plan represented by this decision?”
Bwog is shocked–SHOCKED–that powerless campus organizations make symbolic gestures. Who do they think they are?
– LBD
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51 Comments
@Columbian My friend passed their background check and she is certainly not Republican. All you have to do is quit the (Democrats/Socialists/Pro-Choice/Pro-Healthcare/Pro-Anything else liberal or left) facebook grounds and join the Republican facebook group, and you will pass!!
@Columbian groups* not grounds, sry
@Tell that to Dennis and Ann – the past presidents – both social liberals and both pro-choice
@Bobo The CU Republicans is a pretty large group, considering the political climate on this campus. People always say there are about “5” Republicans on this campus. If you multipled that by a couple factors of ten, you’d be about right.
As arrogant, condescending, and self-important as Kulawik may be, he doesn’t come close to the arrogance of the liberals on this campus who assume they are the only represented ideology and that any disagreement is so ridiculous that proponents thereof would have to be miniscule in number. Put THAT in your jasmine-vanilla chai latte and drink it.
@pissin match my club is bigger than yours.
@Debate Republicans and Democrats are set to debate on Monday night – about energy policy (Hamilton 517 at 9)… CPU is moderating but I wonder if some of last night’s flare up will make it’s way into the debate.
@well, then i’m excluded. you jerks. hoist on your own petard.
@Well then that’s you’re own damn fault, is it not?
@Yoda Love all these funny phrases people have been using I do!
Low membership a club makes not?
Your own fault damn it is then?
@hey Does anybody know who any of the College Republicans are besides Chris Kulawik? Maybe they are nice people?
@... all this makes me wonder how much we’d save on student life fees if they just got rid of these irrelevant political groups.
@bystander 33’s comment is brilliant. recommended reading!
but i’m definitely enjoying this little dispute.
@Anonymous CHRIS KULAWIK YOU SHUT YOUR HORRENDOUS, DIRTY, IGNORANT MOUTH.
If you were truly informed of ANYTHING that walks this green earth then maybe–JUST MAYBE–you would have realized that the Dems have spent countless hours organizing meetings to that THEIR BODY could meet and vote on what they thought was right. YEAH. THAT’S THE REAL STORY. Maybe if the Republicans actually had a body then you could do something like that, too. But until you’re aware of the facts shut the fuck up.
@Rawr! Catfight?
@it's true The College Republicans have no membership & Kulawik obviously doesn’t know or care about the difference between a board and a body. It is so frustrating that his group is so exclusionary when Republicans here are already alienated.
@College Republican If believing that will make you sleep easier at night, then by all means don’t let me stop you. Frankly, I feel the less you know about us (and the more you delude yourself into thinking you know about us), the better.
@wow I don’t think anybody loses sleep over feeling excluded from the College Republicans. And, honestly, saying, “I feel the less you know about us (and the more you delude yourself into thinking you know about us), the better.” just makes you look even more elitist & cliquish.
@College Republican The only people the College Republicans “exclude” from their “clique” are people who don’t want to join the College Republicans, have never talked to or written to the College Republicans, and have never showed up to a College Republicans meeting to find out what they are all about.
@well It’s a little hard to get involved in College Republicans when they never have meetings.
@College Republican E-mail gop@columbia.edu, introduce yourself, and ask if you can attend a weekly E-board meeting. I guarantee you that you will be thoroughly background-checked and, in most cases, invited on board.
@haha I wonder if whoever gets the e-mails from that alias will have their inboxes flooded now. Can there be a count of who passes the “background checks” (which I hope were mentioned jokingly)?
@left wing nut job
Only the Left would call a black man and an organization with a higher approval rating than the new Speaker of the House, racist.
@yes everyone knows there’s never been a Black person who’s racist against Asians, Latinos or Jews.
@It makes sense The plan won by a 2/3 of the folks present (usually the most active and those with a vested interest in the anti war movement – especially this week). But what of that other 1/3 and all those who didn’t make the meeting and disagree with the plan? The e-board will now promote one policy over another – this is bad and questionable club policy.
@just so we're clear Once we finished voting, the question was posed — can everyone live with the Feingold plan? If anyone had been uncomfortable being represented by the plan, we would have continued discussing until we arrived at consensus. As for those who didn’t show, they could have always sent their concerns ahead via e-mail. If you have a problem with Dem club policy (and you’re a member of the club), try voicing it to the Board, or the rest of the body for that matter.
@Disgruntled Dem Yes, for those who didn’t show up but oppose this action, they can “try voicing it to the Board.” Not that the board would actually do anything about it. But at least they’ll listen. I feel better already.
@decisions are made by those who show up.
@please global warming bash? anti-wartrip to dc with over 100 people? campaign trip to ohio with 50 people?
besides, events with nobody also do not a club make. stop trying to pretend the cu republicans do anything except shout and whine for attention. you don’t see any other club throwing a pity party just because no one wants to join.
@hmmm the Dems, a club with well over a thousand members and a majority of the campus (according to the CPU poll only 13% of students are Republicans) can host a global warming (response) to the Republicans, co-sponsor a day trip to DC with several anti-war clubs and, finally hosting their own event, went to campaign for a member’s parent. Say what you will about the Republicans, but at less than 1/4 the size, they do a hell of a lot more and better – you wouldn’t be talking about them if they didn’t.
@well I guess if we measure a thing’s value by how much we talk about it, then Paris Hilton is one of the more valuable members of American society. Besides, it’s easy to get noticed when you insult minorities and invite racists to campus (especially when even crazier people’s actions get you onto Fox News because we’re in New York and it’s easy to produce a story here). C’mon, do you have a positive impression of those people who scrawled homophobic epithets on walls a couple of years ago because people talked about them?
@wll given the size of the republicans, i didnt think kulawik would know there’s a difference between a board and a body.
@Odd yet somehow the Republicans still manage to do more than the Dems
@what exactly have they done besides shame everyone by having Kulawik trash the school on cable news? a beach party and a bake sale? sound like things a sorority would do.
@more than the democrats.
Meetings, pizza and riding on the coattails of other groups and their events does not a club make.
@bake sale was the Conservatives and that was 4-5 years ago. Check your facts.
@Anonymous The Columbia College Conservatives Club Affirmative Action Bake Sale was in the Spring of 2004.
Nothing like a couple of SGB groups to spice up Bwog :)
@Kulawik's an ass The decision was made by the Dems’ membership after hours (literally) of discussion over the course of two meetings. Despite Chris’s delusions, the Dems actually listen to their members, a notion foreign to the Republicans, who, as noted, have neither members nor regular meetings.
I’ve got two questions for Chris – what exactly is the point of being a political leader on campus if you refuse to take positions on political issues? And what’s the point of putting on events like the Minutemen speech, a ‘global warming beach party,’ or an ‘affirmative action bake sale,’ if you aren’t actually advocating positions in any of these events? What exactly are they accomplishing, if they aren’t designed to promote a viewpoint?
@Angry Democrat is Angry.
Facts, however, would help.
Kulawik wasn’t even at Columbia for the bake sale.
Check the Bwog post for the Global Warming Party – several of the CR members who went believed strongly in Global Warming. There is a big difference in hosting an event or a speaker and committing an entire club to a political policy.
@Columbian If only 6 people went to the Global Warming party, and several did not even support the message of the party, then how many people even supported the ridiculous event?
@More random numbers. Lets go even lower. Only 2 people attended the beach party!
Wait… did the Dem Activist group dress up “like Republicans,” in Bush masks and hit Earth pinatas?
And didn’t they do this months after the Republicans?
@moderate Reading Feingold’s plan, I think many Dems would and do think that we owe something more to the people of Iraq than to simply pull out and most likely leave them in a state of civil war that we created. If I were a member of the Dems, I might object to the E-board unilaterally endorsing a plan that is controversial even in the national Democratic party, and might prefer some larger general body meeting to decide just what should be done. If the symbolic gestures of campus organizations mean something, it connotes that they have the support of many members, and not just an E-board elected to organize, not necessarily to represent.
@Funny, but that is exactly what the Dems did. This was decided by members of the dems general body after meetings last week and tonight.
@Do the math: the number of people who go to Dems meetings is a small, small % of the membership at-large. This was the same group which encouraged a co-sponsorship with the radical anti-war left (ISO, Lucha, etc.) – much to the dismay of their members.
@moderate My bad, I was assuming Kulawik was correct in his implication that it was primarily an e-board decision. I neglected the first five words of the post. How much of the membership was there, would you say, percentage-wise?
@OMG! COLLEGE!!!!
@cu dems suck
@hilarious kulawik is such a condescending, self-absorbed, self-important weenie.
there’s a reason they can consult with all their members who “have diverse views”: there are about twelve of them.
@ouch! BOWNED by #2
@I think they were recognized as the largest CR club in the state a few years back.
Believing something is true doesn’t make it so #1.
@Columbian Well, that could just prove that every other CR club in the state is ABSOLUTELY TINY.
@apparently #6 doesn’t realize that there is a Red New York beyond New York City and that Republicans hold a majority in the State Senate.