Effective creativity makes a big difference.  At the recent CPAC 2010 in DC, a new little book, Grandma’s Not Shovel-Ready by my friend Colin Hanna, captured a lot of attention.  It’s a collection of photos of 144 noteworthy signs carried at the 9/12 event and at tea parties around the country.  You can order the book here.

Clever, well-produced signs can generate enthusiasm and earn media coverage at almost any event or rally.  See Colin Hanna’s new book.  See also my booklet, “Signs of Success,”  available here, for more examples and for guidance on the preparation and use of signs in your activities.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

So said Teddy Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in 1910.  Though his words are a century old, they were still thoroughly applicable when quoted today in Campus Reform's Student Activist Training here at CPAC, which was jointly held with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).  The successful training featured three speakers and attracted a large number of interested students for a panel discussion and Q&A session.

Campus Reform has reported before on the unfortunate consequences Obamacare would have for young people.  A Cato Institute study found that health care "reform" will be carried on the backs of young voters. Obamacare could double the health insurance premiums of college-age people. 

Now, a new report from the Heritage Foundation confirms this conclusion:  Current proposals for so-called "reform" will hurt young people:

Many uninsured younger people have chosen to remain without insurance because they are in good health. Under the proposed Senate legislation, this group is prodded into insurance by a penalty-- reaching $750 or 2 percent of their income, whichever amount is larger, in 2016--for failing to buy insurance.  However, the CDA finds that many of those under 35 will choose to pay the penalty instead of buying insurance. This will likely result in higher insurance premiums than projected, and will leave many young people worse off by making them at least $750 poorer. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this report has found that should plans to further socialize the medical industry succeed, many young people will remain without insurance...but the government will get a hefty piece of their paychecks anyway.