Mrs. Shay, you’re trying to get me to vote Republican.
Aren’t you?

Taking a tip from the Young Americans Foundation  that "young at heart" is close enough to actual "young" for wingnut work,  the Young Republicans National Federation has just elected 38 year-old Audra Shay as their new chairman:

A Louisiana woman Saturday won the top job in the Young Republicans National Federation despite a national flap over racist comments on her Facebook account.Nearly 600 Young Republican delegates from across the country spurned the controversy during voting for new leaders at a convention in the Downtown Hyatt Regency hotel.

Calling the posting just political mudslinging, delegates selected Audra Shay, 38, as their new chairman. She will head the group of up-and-coming Republicans ages 18-40 for two years. In a vote closed to news media coverage, Shay defeated Rachel Hoff 470-415 to become chairman, according to TheConservativist.com blog.On the online social networking site Facebook, Shay had supported a friend’s bashing of President Obama, according to a column on TheDailyBeast.com by John Avlon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

About the whole "bashing of President Obama" thing:

On Wednesday, Shay—a 38-year-old Army veteran, mother, and event planner from Louisiana who has been endorsed by her governor, Bobby Jindal—was holding court on her Facebook page, initiating a political conversation by posting that “WalMart just signed a death warrant” by “endorsing Obama’s healthcare plan.” At 1:52, a friend named listed as Eric S. Piker, but whose personal page says his actual name is Eric Pike, wrote “It’s the government making us commies… can’t even smoke in my damn car… whats next they going to issue toilet paper once a month… tell us how to wipe our asses…” 

Two minutes later, Piker posted again saying “Obama Bin Lauden [sic]  is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.”

Eight minutes after that, at 2:02, Shay weighed in on Piker’s comments:  “You tell em Eric!  lol.”

Shay now claims that she was only responding to Piker’s first comments, not having noticed the second.  The eight-minute gap between the second post and her response strains the credibility of this defense.

To be fair, the cougar class is still playing catch-up when it comes to all this "social networking" whosie-whatsis computery stuff  like myspacing, facebooking, and twiting and texturing from your phone. Oh for a simpler  time when a young man’s fancy could be attracted with a pitcher of mai-tais, a Pat Benatar album, and  a bottle of Astroglide with a handy pump dispenser.