Craig Berger's blog

Some reading for your Sunday:

• David Sirota's latest column is spot-on, criticizing the obsessive focus we all have with the presidency, and examining how that hurts the quality of our nation.
• A post from the Utah Amicus blog discusses the College Democrats of America's role in the surge in youth political activism.
• More College Democrats -- An Obama blog post on the meshing of the Obama campaign with the College Democrats' efforts this fall at the College Democrats convention.
• More evangelicals: The Rothenberg Political Report has yet more polling information with regard to evangelicals voting in the presidential election.
• "You Don't Have to Burn Bras to Be Politically Active," an op-ed by Jessica Sidman in the Dallas Morning News, discusses a topic we're all well-aware of around here -- Boomer youth political activism versus Millennial youth political activism.
• A story in the Providence Journal on Obama's appeal to youth and how the campaign uses technology to connect.
• A California newspaper discusses the Democrats' advantages given the current national political climate bringing the political views and demography of young people into the analysis.

While many were disappointed that they got their text message announcing Barack's choice of Joe Biden to be his runningmate at 3:04 AM (and in a third-person, non-Barack voice), I'm still waiting for my text after having signed up late.

The reason I signed up late was that I thought it was kind of lame. It was certainly smart as an organizing tool. And it continues the Obama campaign's appeal to Millennials, even if it was apparent the text came from a machine instead of Barack himself.

But I remembered 2004, when Kerry attempted to announce his runningmate. While good in theory, as the Kerry campaign was probably able to gain several thousand email addresses, the press scooped his selection of John Edwards before his supporters could be fed the secret information. By the time they got the email, it served as one more echo of the news the mainstream media had already trumpeted.

All along I was hesitant to sign up because I figured that, in the end, this text message would become just as irrelevant. Today's news media would simply not allow a text message or an email to notify the world about the choice made. I figured I'd end up reading about it on the internet somewhere anyway, and the Obama campaign already has every piece of information it would need about me anyway. I ended up signing up just to be a part of it all, but again, to me, the text message was lame.

What did you think? (Below is a photo on techPresident of David All's text received from the Obama campaign.)

What I'm reading this Saturday:

• This history of the culture wars of the last 40 years dovetails a bit with my earlier piece. I think (and hope) we're emerging from this.
• The Times proclaims that "the year of the political blogger has arrived."
• Virginia's young voters are tearing it up. What an amazing development.
• Are younger candidates the answer to getting youth involved in local politics?
• Congressional Democrats zero in on a directive to Veterans Affairs hospitals to prohibit voter registration efforts.
• Incoming college freshmen were born in 1990?!? Find out more about them here.

I have always been interested in politics. I could recite the presidents in order when I was in the first grade. I was fascinated by the red/blue maps they would show on TV on election night. The first time I really remember being captivated by politics -- knowing what was going on and what the ramifications were -- was when I watched the results of the 2002 congressional elections in my residence hall room with my Republican hallmate and friend (he's now a Democrat). As 2004 came, I remember being obsessed with the election and closely monitoring it on both the internet and television. I was frustrated during both cycles -- Democrats were showing a remarkable ability to fight the battle exclusively on Republican ground. Issues like gay marriage, abortion, and immigration were complemented by weak Democratic positions on the war in Iraq. Voters were offered no compelling narrative to balance the Republican platform -- so given the choice between Republicans and impostor Republicans, they chose the real thing.

Things are different in 2008, though. The gloss to these superficial issues began to wash away in the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. No longer could we pretend that immigration, right to life issues, or same sex marriage were real priorities for this country. Poverty was devastatingly linked with actual people; America got a glimpse of why it is ineffective and heartless to talk about wedge issues rather than solve the actual problems our country faces. There were Americans who were suffering and were gagged; career politicians didn't care to hear their cries for help. In 2006, after Republican scandals further decimated the notion that the GOP's way of doing things would be good for the country, Democrats ran a populist campaign largely based on the issues the country cared about, and they were wildly successful, reclaiming both the Senate and the House.

Young people were enthused by the campaign in 2006. In 2004, Kerry won 18-29 year olds by 54-45 margin over Bush. In 2006, 18-29 year olds voted Democratic by a 60 to 38 margin. Candidates like Jim Webb in Virginia and Claire McCaskill in Missouri ran campaigns that appealed to the gut. Webb's State of the Union response only twenty days after he was sworn in demonstrated why he had so much success while beating former Republican senator George Allen. It was short and to the point, focused on the issues that were relevant. In 2005, after he lost his bid for the Democratic Party's nomination in the previous year, Howard Dean was elected as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he immediately announced plans to broaden participation among rank-and-file party members, creating a fifty state strategy aimed at mobilizing the people. This call to action combined with a focus on shifting the debate back to the problems affecting people's lives led to a Democratic landslide in 2006 and set the stage for something bigger in 2008.

This year, we've been blessed and/or cursed with a protracted primary battle between two candidates. One candidate in particular demonstrated his understanding of the culture of America's youth. Embracing technology, creating opportunities to serve, and emphasizing the solving of problems led to a surge in support of Senator Obama among the youth community. Democrats, following Howard Dean's and Barack Obama's lead, have made participatory politics chic. Whether they both had read Millennials Rising or not, the change in political approach was exactly what was needed to capitalize on this new civic-minded generation.

We've been reading over the last several months now about how Barack Obama can not close the deal. We've been reading about how American voters may still entertain racist feelings because they're unsure of Obama. We've been reading about how people are worried that Obama might be elected and destroy the government. We've been reading about how Obama isn't patriotic because he doesn't wear a small piece of metal on his jacket. We've read a lot. But while we've been distracted on these issues -- defending Obama's patriotism and his capacity to lead us -- the strategy over the last couple years has actually put us in an enviable position.

This Democratic Party, one tending to focus on youth, on service, on technology, on being connected to one another, on solving problems, on getting involved, on taking responsibility for your community, is a winner. When we ask people to sacrifice and articulate why it's important they do so, that is an appeal to the best Americans have to offer. When we all participate, we're all better off. That is, in my mind, the message that differentiates this Democratic Party from those of years past.

Peter Levine, the director of CIRCLE, wrote on Thursday about the momentum behind the service movement, given that Barack Obama and John McCain have both agreed to appear and participate in a September 11th summit on national community service in New York City. Levine notes that this signals how far service as an American priority has come over the years. Both candidates will make statements -- they will not debate -- on a variety of philosophical and financial questions about the service movement.

This is once more evidence of the Democratic Party, the Left, whatever you'd like to call it, being successful at reframing the debate to talk about issues that are more tangible to the American people. This is also an example of the current foresight of our Democratic leaders -- forcing a discussion on a topic that is hugely important for our future leaders. Our up and coming generation has had a long love affair with volunteering and helping others. Many cite service's immediate impacts as the appeal (although youth seem to be becoming more patient with the process and getting politically involved as well). Of course, it will only help that Sen. Obama was a community organizer when he speaks next month.

As this campaign heats up over the next couple months, please notice the difference between this Democratic Party and the one that we had to suffer through five or six years ago. And then, please think about the difference between this Democratic Party and the one we will build five or six years from now. There are problems with funding the youth arm of the left's infrastructure as Mike as done a great job of noting here, so in order for this to happen, we still need to make sure we're backing it with all the resources we have. But if we do, and if we make a commitment to talking about these issues, the goal of creating a future majority among youth couldn't help but be met.

Sunday reading material:

• Jack and Jill Politics reflects on an interview Jesse Jackson Sr. gave, talking about the generational division within the black community and its ongoing battle for equality.
• An impressive piece by a California high school student regarding the political issues impacting teenagers today.
• An article in The Guardian discussing Obama's popularity with younger voters along with a few interviews with Obama supporters.
• Tim Kaine campaigns for Obama in DC's Virginia suburbs.
• Another MSNBC profile of China's young people -- this time, it's about their nightlife.
• A San Francisco law restricting investigations on prostitution forgets about boys and girls trapped within the system.
• A column in the South Bend Tribune criticizes attempts at making a joke of the 1968 protests of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
• The Pottstown Mercury reports on the recent opening of an Obama office in Pottstown, PA.

I've recently become interested in urban planning and the impact of the Millennial Generation on its future. I'm originally from an area smack dab in the middle of the rust belt. I've read about and observed the many mid-size industrial cities around my hometown, especially Youngstown, Ohio, struggle with keeping crime under control, working around massive population loss, and selling people on the notion that it is important to rebuild these cities' urban cores.

Luckily, many of these cities are already getting back on track. Youngstown, for example, is being guided by the Youngstown 2010 project, a community-drafted plan established in 2002. Cleveland's downtown got an overhaul in the early 1990s. But there is still more work to be done. In doing this work, we need to make sure we understand what resources these communities need in order to solidify plans like these and put them into action.

Many people might ask why this has any connection with Millennials -- why is it important to rebuild these cities when its citizens have been moving to suburbs for years? Why is it important to invest in these urban areas when those young people fortunate enough to go to school will just move away after school? An article in the Washington Business Journal about the connection between the future of urban planning and its connection with Generation X and Millennials gave me an answer.

Millennials are actually pre-disposed to living in urban areas. Their focus on community and convenience demands a short commute to whatever resource they need in their community. Ask any Millennial who uses the Internet to do research for a school project, chats on AIM with two friends, listens to music, and checks on the score of his favorite team's baseball game all at once -- they like to multi-task; they like productivity.

The most important factor in figuring out where we’ll be living in the future is to look at how we’ll be living. Just as the automobile in the 1940s and ’50s and racial turbulence in the 1960s and ’70s drove their parents and grandparents to the suburbs, look for today’s younger generations to affect what tomorrow’s communities will look like.

Just consider developer Jim Abdo’s successful bet in the late 1990s that Gen X-ers (born from 1965 to 1980) would line up for new places in the city if he helped remake Logan Circle.

“Generation X and Generation Y are putting much more emphasis on life-work balance,” says Adam Ducker, managing director at Richard Charles Lesser & Co., a real estate firm based in Bethesda.

One of the main ways to achieve a better life-work balance, Ducker says, is foregoing a large home in the suburbs and the long commute it carries for a smaller home closer to work. Commuting in exchange for a bigger house was a deal baby boomers were willing to make for their family. For younger generations, that’s not a reasonable trade-off.

As you read, a community re-formed on the basis of convenience is a necessary ingredient in rebuilding our urban areas. In addition, their dedication to the environment is another reason why Millennials might be interested in living in an urban community. An overhaul of the mass transit system would appeal to younger people in this time of high gas prices and environmental concerns.

So where does infrastructure come into play?

Well, the problem with urban redevelopment is that, many times, the projects that are a part of the process get stalled in Congress or other legislatures because they are labeled as "pork." For example, John McCain is on record saying that he will pay for many of his own plans -- like reinstating Bush's tax cuts -- by eliminating the pork from Congress. And while you can already see the problem developing there, McCain adds to it by advocating for a gas tax holiday; this will eliminate the funding for many of the projects involving our nation's infrastructure, further paralyzing development (while not getting any economic benefit).

Bob Herbert wrote a terrific piece for his column in the New York Times about the importance of infrastructure and its tendency to fly under the rader due to its... unsexy... nature.

I sat in on a meeting Thursday as Mr. Diaz and several other mayors, including Michael Bloomberg of New York, met in Manhattan to discuss ways of getting the federal government involved in large-scale infrastructure and transportation initiatives. The mayors are trying to spread the message that investing in a sound infrastructure is essential for continued economic development.

This may seem obvious, but infrastructure proponents are having a terrible time getting traction on this issue. Infrastructure initiatives are expensive, and not sexy. But there are powerful returns on these investments. They tend to pay for themselves many times over (can you imagine New York City without the subways?) and the projects are job creators.

With President Bush on the way out, the burden of leading an effort to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure would fall on either Barack Obama or John McCain. Representatives of each candidate attended Thursday’s meeting but did not participate.

The mayors talked about clogged highways, the high price of gasoline and an air transportation system that seems to get more pitiful by the day. Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Miss., called on the presidential candidates to take a bold, creative approach to the nation’s transportation needs, including substantial investments in railroad infrastructure.

Mr. Smith believes the nation should devote the same level of commitment to developing a first-rate passenger rail system as was marshaled for the interstate highway system in the Eisenhower era.

My whole point in writing about this issue today is to articulate the link between progress for the future (and we have to look at what Millennials will want, since, according to the Washington Business Journal article, they'll be 30% of the population and transitioning to homeowner status by 2012) with the need for infrastructure. Bob Herbert is right -- it's not an attractive issue to talk about, just like it's not fun to sit in construction delays on a highway, but placed in context, it's crucial for our future.

We could have vibrant communities, with small grocery stores, coffeehouses, laundry facilities, movie theaters, drug stores, and apartments all included. We could have a state-of-the-art mass transit system linking these communities in many of our urban areas. We could have a light rail highway set up in the mold of the Eisenhower highway system. But without a focus on infrastructure, none of this will get off the ground.

Some reading for your Saturday. (Updated by Mike)

• A Missouri state senate race was decided by youth volunteers.
• Russell Simmons, a famed hip-hop producer, appears on Fox News to discuss his GOTV effort.
• An excellent article delving into McCain's failure on technology policy and its connection to his poor performance among youth.
• Paul Krugman ponders our globalized economy and its understated fragility with regard to geopolitics.
• David Broder tackles the well-oiled machine that is the Obama campaign.
• The Toronto Star has an interesting column on the disappearance of fashion's connection with politics; it turns out Millennials would rather profess their opinion online and turn them into social movements -- who knew?
• MSNBC examines the volunteer efforts of China's Ba-Ling-Hou Generation, the American Millennial's counterpart; many Chinese youth have mobilized to confront the damage from the recent massive earthquake that struck a few weeks ago.
• U.S. News and World Report has a profile on the generations of the two presidential candidates; unfortunately no discussion of the impact of Millennials.
• User Generated Content at its best:

John McCain has a depth problem.

Over the past few weeks, I have written a few times about McCain's lack of familiarity with technology -- specifically e-mail and the web. In a New York Times interview, the candidate told a reporter that he's working on that whole internet thing.

Q: But do you go on line for yourself?

Mr. McCain: They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need – including going to my daughter’s blog first, before anything else.

Q: Do you use a blackberry or email?

Mr. McCain: No.

Emphasis added.

But let's not forget another interview Senator McCain gave with the San Francisco Chronicle.

GOP presidential candidate John McCain, fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the nation's technology capitals, acknowledged Monday that he isn't a "tech freak" or entirely comfortable with the Internet, BlackBerrys or e-mail. But he strongly disputed criticism that he is "out of the loop" as unfair.

As former head of the U.S. Senate Commerce committee, McCain said, he has been a driving force to oversee legislation that helped the Internet flourish - even as he is still learning to get comfortable with it himself.

"Am I a tech freak? No," he said in an interview Monday with The Chronicle. "And I don't like to text message because I'd rather call somebody on the telephone."

"I do understand the importance of the computer. I understand the importance of the blogs," he said.

McCain said he is well aware that technology "does drive the news. It is changing the shape of the news. ... It's changing the information age, and I've got to stay up with it."

He added, "But I am forcing myself ... let me put it this way, I am using the computer more and more every day."

And that's where we were a few weeks ago. A 72 year old Republican candidate that was simply technology deficient. A candidate of the "olden days," as Paris Hilton might say.

But then something troubling happened. McCain gave an otherwise innocent speech in Erie, PA on August 11th regarding the Georgia-Russia conflict. Reports then surfaced linking McCain's speech to the Wikipedia entry for "Georgia." Remarkably similar passages were laid out, side by side, at some websites; this revealed an uncanny similarity, familiar to college professors who have been victims of plagiarism:

First instance:

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)

vs.

one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

Second instance:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)

vs.

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)

While the campaign, of course, has tried to muddle this controversy, I think the phrasing similarities speak for themselves. There's no doubt that the source was relied upon; as for whether it was careless research or a calculated effort, we don't really have the ability to know.

But let's assume, at the minimum, that this was a result of careless writing by the McCain campaign. No other act could be further from their campaign message, could it? They are running on the senator's foreign policy experience, his ability to rely on his knowledge of countries around the world and the web of geopolitics linking them. They're also running against someone they portray to be a lazy celebrity. The "life must be grand in the spotlight" McCain ad comes to mind here. Obama, they're trying to argue, is merely a lightweight, an empty suit, who can do nothing more than string words together. But McCain's problem here is that he couldn't even do that.

If one wishes to be viewed as a foreign policy heavyweight, he or she should be able to put their own views into their own words. I, and many other Millennials, want the best person for the job. We don't want someone who can't provide the country with original thought. We're not looking for someone who can't communicate with us at our level. We're looking for someone with depth, who can make sound decisions based on statistics, data, advice from the best and the brightest.

After his interviews revealing technological ignorance, after his attacks on Obama void of any logical justification for his own candidacy, and after this Wikipedia incident, John McCain's lack of depth is becoming quite apparent.

The New York Times writes about the transition for some some young ex-Clinton staffers now working for Obama in Chicago.

A piece in the Flint (MI) Journal examines new social networking and media tools and their connection to an increase in youth political engagement this fall. Unfortunately, this article includes an example of the Republican strategic pessimism regarding the youth vote:

Facebook won't win any elections, said Harry Awdey, president of UM-Flint's College Republicans.

"We're trying to energize who we have out there but a lot of young people aren't going to vote," he said. "It seems like every couple of years they say it's going to be the year of the youth vote and it hasn't been yet.

"I'd like to think people are more civilly engaged but it's really that voter participation was so low that it had nowhere to go but up."

Nate Silver (of FiveThirtyEight.com fame) pens a good, if simple op-ed in the New York Post on the importance of the youth vote to Obama and why a surge in youth turnout appears likely this November.

Another piece -- this one in the Pioneer Press (MN) -- examines the paradox of a young, technology-obsessed McCain supporter supporting a 71 year old man who doesn't do email. Here's a sneak peek:

Andy Brehm is an e-mailaholic who frequently logs onto his Facebook social networking page to chat with his friends over the Web.

But the man he wants to be the nation's next president doesn't do any of those things.

Brehm, 27, a recent law school graduate, is as tech savvy as they come. John McCain, 71, the presumptive Republican nominee, once said he's never done "a Google."

...

"To be honest, I'd rather the president not spend his time e-mailing," Brehm said. "There are more important things to deal with. This country has some real serious problems that big government and higher taxes aren't going to fix."

A localized example of the surge in Democratic registrations this year: Boulder, Colorado.

Reuters speculates whether hip-hop could help or burden Barack Obama.

As you saw in today's Quick Hits, CBS News has a great story up about McCain's lack of appeal to youth voters.

The article starts with observations of McCain's lack of comfort with technology, the thing that binds most Millennials together. But then it digs deeper into the dissonance that exists between McCain's stances on issues and the increasingly liberal views on the Millennial Generation.

Of course, when it comes to the youth vote in this election, any Republican nominee would begin the race at a significant disadvantage. Young people are clearly skewing to the left this election year, identifying more with the Democratic Party and embracing more liberal positions on so-called wedge issues by sizeable majorities. They've supported more lenient approaches to dealing with illegal immigrants, agreed that all citizens should have healthcare (even if the government has to provide it to those who can't afford it) and supported either same-sex marriage or civil unions for homosexual couples. Meanwhile, John McCain has wavered on immigration, his healthcare plan has been described as “total laissez-faire liberty” and he opposes both same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt.

I think that many Millennials would forgive John McCain for refining his positions on issues, as Millennials are pragmatic by nature and, in the end, want the best solution, not the purest ideology. But McCain's problem is that he has switched his positions on issues clumsily, such as immigration, Bush's tax cuts, and whether or not he's able to understand the U.S. economy. That would theoretically undermine his ability, in many Millennials' eyes, to offer any expertise at digging this country out of its rut.

So then McCain and the Republicans, understanding this, are forced into a decision. Do they hand the massive Millennial Generation over to the Democrats for good by discouraging their participation in this election, or do they start trying to build a relationship with young people with the remaining time left in order to strengthen it down the road? While they'd be wise to do the latter, it doesn't look good.

Between February 1 and July 31, Obama held thirty-two campaign events in college towns; McCain held three. The McCain campaign has yet to publicly announce an official youth outreach or youth vote campaign director. On the other hand, Obama has hired former Rock the Vote political director Hans Reimer. Not surprisingly, young Republicans have complained about the McCain campaign's poor efforts at the grassroots level and failure to make use of existing networks. "They definitely haven't reached out to the younger generation as strongly as I hoped they would," an organizer for the Young Republicans in South Carolina recently told a local newspaper. "It's a big mistake. You've got to create something that people want to be a part of. I'm just not getting that feeling this go-round." A young conservative political strategist named David All concurred, remarking to the Washington Post that "Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in."

One more thing I found to be interesting.

"Let me just start by saying that it would not be unheard of for a Republican candidate to win the youth vote," says Justin York, a grassroots youth organizer for McCain in Florida and an incoming junior at the University of Central Florida (UCF). York points out that Ronald Reagan, nearly McCain's age in 1984, won the majority of youth voters in his reelection bid and George H.W. Bush, at the age of 64, also captured the majority of youth voters four years later. And if York's organizing efforts in Florida pay off, perhaps McCain can repeat their successes.

Not so fast, Justin. The problem with York's first statement is that he's living in the 1980s. With today's youth, it would be unheard of for a Republican to win the youth vote. Ronald Reagan did enjoy success with Generation X. But Generation X is certainly different than the engaged, institutional, liberal Millennials. Justin also seems to be ignoring the 1990s. In 1992, the youth vote soared, but Bill Clinton was favored by the youth by a 44 percent to 34 percent (Bush) to 22 percent (Perot) margin. In 1996, Clinton again was favored, this time over Dole, by a 53 percent to 34 percent margin. Granted, many 1992 voters did not vote at all in 1996, but even so, the Republicans clearly did not enjoy any appreciation from that demographic.

McCain and the Republicans are treating (and hoping) the Millennials are like Generation X, a generation that, at worst for the Republicans, splits their vote somewhat evenly between the GOP and the Democrats, and is ambivalent about politics. But fortunately for the Democratic Party and our democracy, Millennials are different. They are engaged, they are liberal, and come November 4th, all signs point to them turning out and voting for Democrats in large numbers.