Tom Tancredo was recently trying to speak at UNC, and was shouted down by Leftist protestors who then moved to breaking windows, eventually shutting down the event. The whole sordid affair is here, and you should watch the video to see what passes for modern Leftist debate these days.
I'm curious why the UNC Young Republicans don't storm the UNC President's Office, take it over, and demand an official apology and the expelling of the students involved. That would be a good news day, but it's not going to happen. One of the reasons conservatives don't protest is fear for their future careers. Get your face on the front page of the student newspaper and you may find yourself unemployable the next May. This is not a concern for leftists, who are indoctrinated in colleges and then moved into left wing activist groups, before being rewarded with government jobs. Take Missouri's own Director of Communications for the Secretary of State. You may not know this, but Robin Carnahan's $60,000 pet leftwing activist knows her way around a protest. Back in 2004, this article in the student life talks about Laura going back to Wash U as a former student to engage in a little protest during the second presidential debate.
Here she is making a life size puppet with small children in what we can only hope is a volunteer capacity (child labor laws being so stringent). Ah, left wingers in action, making puppets. We don't know Laura's full engagement in protests, but we do know that she worked for Americans Coming Together in 2004. During that stint at ACT, the organization hired workers for GOTV which unfortunately included convicted sex offenders going door-to-door gathering personal information. That was no impediment to Egerdal's career, who then moved "up" to SEIU in 2005. At SEIU, she seems to have stayed for one year, and then returned in 2008, before finally getting the big seat as the spokesperson for Robin Carnahan.
That use of the term former student is an interesting one. One might be inclined to think Ms. Egerdal graduated from Washington University in St Louis and was returning as an alumni. I thought that at first. And then this came up. Laura, who goes by the nickname, Egg, said she wasn't making it back to school.
My name is Egg (really Laura, but few call me that). I was a Wash U
> student for two years studying social thought and analysis, but it's
> looking like I'm not going back in the fall.
That listserv message was in June of 2003. In September of 2004, when that picture was taken, Laura is referred to as a former Washington University student, but in 2005, she's working for SEIU full-time as a union representative. In 2008, she is again working for SEIU (based on the alternet story of her astroturf work on the Missourians for Fair Elections "coalition"). Research turns up a Flickr photo in 2005, and her blog which covers a personal sport and explains much of her 2007, where she worked full time for a outdoor clothing company and spent a lot of time on the road. That's a tight time frame to finish school. Did she?
I'm not making any accusations here. Internet research is spotty at best, and it's very possible that Egerdal completed her studies somewhere else, but there is a question of whether Laura Egerdal has a degree from an accredited four year university. Why? It seems that the requirements to serve as the Director of Communications for the Secretary of State of Missouri include both a four year degree a minimum of four years of experience.
- Four years of communications experience with a fast-paced government office, organization, business, or as a journalist.
- A Bachelors degree from an accredited four-year college or university.
Now normally this wouldn't matter. Employers waive requirements all the time, and even having a degree isn't really all it's cracked up to be. If Robin Carnahan feels Laura is right for the job, she certainly has it in her discretion to award a $60,000 position to somebody regardless of whether or not she has her degree. There's just that one nagging piece of information that makes one wonder.
What exactly are Laura's qualifications to be Director of Communications? Her work with ACT is tainted. Her work with SEIU is spotty (and her close working relationship with the legislative director of ACORN is a bit worrisome). It seems strange that someone whose sole experience seems to be working as a foot soldier of far left wing organizations with a troublesome tendency to be under investigation should be appointed as the spokeswoman of the Secretary of State.
This spokeswoman is the one in charge of responding to complaints from the Missouri GOP about the undue influence of ACORN in the SoS office. This spokeswoman actually was involved in the hiring of people to canvass for voter registration, a major problem nationwide as these groups have had serious problems in Missouri, every year having employees convicted of fraud. And yet every year Robin Carnahan uses her office to push back at GOP efforts to prevent such fraud. Laura Egerdal was even involved in the campaign to prevent Voter ID, a major Carnahan initiative that included press events with an unreported union representative standing in as a regular citizen and an admitted astroturf web campaign involving SEIU, AFCSME, and ACORN.
Is there any reason to suspect that Robin Carnahan hired Laura Egerdal for her experience and education, instead of as a reward for being a loyal left wing activist? And is a left wing activist with troublesome ties to groups under investigation really the right kind of person to be responding to accusations of undue influence from those same groups?
At some point, the ties between Carnahan and the numerous offshoots of ACORN and the unions is going to be reported. With an important 2010 election and a tight race projected, those of us paying attention have little confidence in a Secretary of State who treats government positions as payment for services rendered.
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