I love this story. It's been around, but I happened to catch it on NPR last night.

It seems that national Republicans are worried that they're losing their appeal to younger voters. As the head of the national collegiate Republicans said on the air yesterday, if the voting age had been thirty, Romney would be president today.

So they did a study to find out what their problem is with young voters, and they came up with an answer that should make regular readers of Green Mountain Daily very, very happy.

 And on the whole, young Republican voters seem to agree the party needs to change its image.

Yes, that's right.  The way they understand the problem, the Republican Party has an image problem. As NPR reporter Audie Cornish points out, “in focus group surveys, young, winnable Obama voters, they used the words like close-minded, racist, rigid and old fashioned when you did word association with Republican Party.”

 And the problem is what? That's right, image. Nothing to do with the positions of the Republican Party, and everything to do with messaging.

Of course, the problem is way more than image. It's not a matter of whether they should talk about “big government” when they are attacking programs that help people, it's really a matter of attacking the programs that help people. For instance, their platform calls for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and they've voted to repeal it thirty-seven times. Meanwhile, millions of young adults have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, and millions are able to get contraception because of that same act.

 But you know what? That's fine with me, and it should be fine with you, too. Because as long as they keep lying to themselves about why the can't get any traction with young voters they're still going to be unable to get traction with young voters, and that's good for all of us.