The GOP’s New Youth Outreach Effort: Lady Gaga Parody

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The GOP’s latest concerted effort to reach out to young voters was unveiled at the weekly Republican conference meeting on Tuesday morning: a parody music video of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.”

Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) showed his colleagues a clip of the parody video, entitled “Just Tax,” described as “a song against racking up devastating national debt and massive government expansion” by the poster. See the video below.

Lyrics from the song include “A billion here, a billion there/When will the people start to care?” – echoing Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) editorial in yesterday’s Politico blasting Obama’s health care reform and stimulus package, entitled “A Trillion Here, A Trillion There.”

CNN reported that Reichert’s spokeswoman said he “wanted to show his colleagues the video to encourage them to get young people involved using new media, and noted his district is home to a cluster of technology companies.”

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN) also laughingly told CNN the video parody is “part of the Pence youth initiative” and “admitted that very few members were familiar with the original Lady Gaga song.”

The fairly new combination of the GOP and new media – especially when it involves music videos – often produces disastrous results. It’s hard to say whether this video is actually of a higher caliber than the young conservatives rap that TPM noted back in late May, but it does win entertainment value points with an attempt at special effects. Readers may also remember Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s (R-MI) fun foray into the Twitter world.

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