Michael Connery's blog

I'm attending a panel right now about using social media to build an audience for your blog. It features Matt Browner Hamlin, the Online Director for the Mark Begich Senate Campaign (fomerly of the Dodd campaign and Students for a Free Tibet), Jason Rosenbaum of the Sentinel, Josh Nelson and Cheryl Contee.

Jason and Josh just are discussing best practices for getting content noticed on social news sites like Digg, Reddit, Buzzflash and Stumbleupon and they made an important point. It's very hard to get noticed by A-list bloggers or to break through the clutter on Daily Kos to get on the Recommended list or promoted to the front page. If you don't have solid connections to those bloggers already, trying to get them to link to you is not a great strategy to get noticed and build traffic (even if the audience of those blogs might seem like the most low-hanging fruit). While it may seem daunting to try to break into these social news communities, it can be a more efficient and successful strategy than trying to break through in the A-List blogs.

Other useful tips for using these site:

• Live or die by the headline. Most people try to convey their point and get people to click through to their article. That's a mistake. If you don't get on the front page, you are not going to get a lot of hits. So your goal in writing a headline should be to convince the reader to give you a vote.
• Be good community members. Don't just spam the site, but contribute other interesting articles not written by you.
• Engage the commenters. Just like on Daily Kos, you have to engage the community to build traffic and votes. And on sites like Digg, the number of comments can impact the algorithm and play a role in getting you on the front page.
• Have a small pool of allies - readers or cobloggers - to help jump-start your article with a few votes. It takes no time and on smaller sites like Buzzflash it can quickly help you get to the front page.

Sorry it has taken so long to post a report from Netroots Nation - it's easy to get sucked in here talking to all the people that I only get to see once or twice per year. If you don't feel like we're shedding enough light on what's happening, you can go check out the live Ustreams from four or five of the ballrooms here at the convention center.

Kevin and Sarah have both been here longer than I, and they've got great write-ups of what's happened so far. In particular, you should all go and read Kevin's thorough recounting of the panel on the DNC and Obama for America's online tools.

I wanted to add some thoughts to what Kevin wrote about the Youth Caucus. First, apparently there was no pre-organizing involved in this event. In fact, I think the NN08 organizers just put it up on the schedule without consulting anyone about it. As a result, people milled around for awhile and then Nate from the Roosevelt Institution got everyone to sit together and began a conversation. Next year, there should be a lot more planning involved in this event. Other caucuses featured elected officials, or had pre-set agendas. Something a little more structured might be useful for all the young attendees next year.

The discussion - started by Rob Anderson from Campus Progress - revolved around one central question: What is this "youth movement?" Is it about an age demographic, or is it about a generational policy agenda (and which should it be)?

I was pretty burnt out yesterday from my early flight, so I didn't contribute much to the discussion. That was actually a good thing - it was nice to hear what younger folks are thinking five years into this "youth movement." A day late, I'd like to inject just one thing into the debate.

You can't really talk about this thing we all call the new progressive "youth movement" without context about how it arose. Five years ago, there were very few organizations working with and on behalf of young people in progressive politics - the PIRGS, USSA, College and Young Dems. For the vast majority of young people, recently politicized by 9/11 and the Iraq War, these organizations were viewed (sometimes rightly) as either ineffective or culturally out of touch. There was a vacuum - real and perceived - in youth politics. We lacked the structures to identify and mentor new leaders, and the institutions to engage a significant part of the youth electorate.

Out of that came a lot of entrepreneurial activism to create those structures, and when we talk about a youth movement in the last five years, that is what we are referring to - the movement to create those institutions and engage young voters in the process.

The question is itself significant in that we've finally arrived in a place where a lot of those structures are in place, young voters are being taken seriously, and now building infrastructure is no longer enough in and of itself. We have to ask the question "to what end?" A few years ago, that question wasn't even possible because none of us were gathered together in any coherent way with anyway to influence the debate. That's a great place to be in and it's light years ahead of where we were five years ago. Let's recognize that.

I also want to highlight a point that Matt Lockshin of California YDA brought up. Despite all these gains, there is still a huge population that is not being served by these institutions we've created. Young people in underserved communities, communities of color, and non-college youth are still not engaged in to what we are doing in any significant way, in large part because we focus on very different issues, we talk about these issues in vastly different ways, and most importantly, these issues affect our lives in very different ways. That's a huge gap that needs to be filled and it actually bridges both of the issues we discussed, the infrastructure and the issues.

One final note - as a number of people have pointed out, Netroots Nation seems significantly younger than in previous years. Are the netroots getting younger, or is the event just gaining a higher profile among younger activists? Don't know.

I'm in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK waiting for my flight down to Austin for Netroots Nation. I hate flying, but I'm somewhat looking forward to the flight down - 4 hours with no internet will give me a lot of time to work on a few blog posts that have been rattling round in my head for the past week.

Living Liberally will post their usual Tues-Thurs blog later today, but the rest of the week will likely consist mostly of live blogs from Netroots Nation. If you're going to be down there, here's where you will find me. I'll be the guy with the fish logo on his credential.

Two more things before I head offline. First, thanks to everyone who has contributed to our little fundraiser for the Young Voter PAC. We're not at 50 donors yet, but we're inching our way up there. Please give a little bit if you can. Second, here's some reading to tide you over until I land and the live-blogging begins:

• Tremayne at Open Left reports on the massive increase in voter registration on the Democratic side. A lot of that is from Millennials.
• Anya Kamenetz has a new column about the new interest rate on student loans and strategies for getting rid of your student debt.
• She's also got a blog post up about how the economic downturn is affecting youth employment.
• If you care, Jib Jab has a new video up lampooning McCain and Obama and riffing off Bob Dylan. Personally, I never thought they were all that funny . . .
• Earlier this week, Bergerc84 posted a thoughtful piece about McCain's (lack of) youth outreach. Well the gossip rags are now reporting that the McCain Blogette had lunch with Heidi Montag from The Hills. I guess that's McCain's idea of ramping up the youth outreach???
• Finally, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights wants to know what Civil Rights 2.0 looks like and what Civil Rights means to Millennials. They're holding a YouTube competition to find out. They have a video, but the Jet Blue wifi doesn't seem to want to load YouTube so I'll have to embed it later.

I'd like to try a little experiment here . . .

Earlier this year, I joined the board of the Young Voter PAC, an organization that has long been an advocate for young people in politics and a great friend to Future Majority.

The Young Voter PAC works to make sure that politicians pay attention to the youth vote and that young voters have a voice in the process. In non-PR-speak, that means that they teach candidates and campaigns best practices for reaching out to young voters, work with state parties on young voter outreach, and reward candidates who demonstrate a commitment to young voters. In the past, they have supported Scott Kleeb, Jon Tester, Patrick Murphy, Darcy Burner, Lois Murphy, Harry Mitchell, Patricia Madrid and many others.

The Young Voter PAC does more than just cut checks to candidates. They also work tirelessly behind the scenes to advocate for young people in the Democratic Party. This year alone, YVP supported Iowa students through scholarships to cover travel costs for college students returning to Iowa to participate in the caucuses, and they pushed back hard against the Clinton campaign for suggesting that Iowa students be disenfranchised. They've helped bring big-name candidates like Jared Polis and Scott Kleeb here to Future Majority, for our live-blogging sessions, and in partnership with Future Majority, Living Liberally and others, YVP is organizing young voter events at Netroots Nation and the Democratic Convention.

I've set a personal goal of finding 50 people to support the work of Young Voter PAC. I don't care how much we raise - that's not really important. Most youth organizing is supported by large checks cut by a very small cadre of donors. That is hugely problematic, and it's a situation disliked by both organizers, who fear their funding may disappear on a whim, and the donors, who would like youth organizations to become self sustaining.

The only way out of this bind is for youth organizations to cultivate small and mid-level donor bases. That's why the number of donors - not the amount raised - is so important. It will show major donors that the Young Voter PAC can attract small donors, making it more attractive as an investment for them and hopefully move it on the path to self-sustainability. So please, give whatever you can, no matter how small. Your voice, and your participation, are more important than the amount you can contribute.

We want politicians to pay attention to young people, and we want young people to have a voice in campaigns. Young Voter PAC is one way to change the faces of elections: who participates and who wins. Your support can help do that. It's time we make an investment in the people who represent us in Democratic politics.

It's been a while since we've posted any polling data on the site. In part, that's because the primaries are over and in part because so few polling outfits conduct good polls focusing on young voters.

I don't know about you, but it's left me jonesing for some good polling data. So I thought I'd pass along this recent poll from Quinnipiac, which spotlights the role young voters are playing in keeping Sen. Obama ahead of John McCain (emphasis mine):

With commanding leads among women and young voters and near unanimous support from black voters, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has a 50 - 41 percent lead over Arizona Sen. John McCain, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of likely voters released today.

Independent voters split 44 - 44 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Sen. McCain has a slight 47 - 44 percent edge among men voters and a larger 49 - 42 percent lead among white voters.

But black voters back Sen. Obama 94 - 1 percent, while women support him 55 - 36 percent. Obama leads 63 - 31 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old and 48 - 44 percent among voters 35 to 54, while voters over 55 split with 45 percent for McCain and 44 percent for Obama.

I mentioned this in a comment yesterday, but thought it was worth an individual post. Over the course of the last four years, the notion of "The Troops" and what it means to support them has undergone a radical transformation. In 2004, supporting the troops meant putting a yellow magnetic ribbon on the bumper of your car. During the '04 election, the troops were a bludgeon used to beat back Democrats and brand any opposition to the war as unpatriotic - indeed at times it was suggested that dissent was synonymous with giving comfort and aid to the enemy (a treasonous offense).

Since then, we've had four years of conservatives exploiting the troops as weapons and sheilds to fight their political battles, all the while short-changing them on the resources they need to safely execute their orders and build a middle class life once they leave the service.

First came the revelation that Private Jessica Lynch was used as a propaganda tool by the administration to create a war hero and drum up support for the conflict. Then came Cpl. Pat Tillman's death under friendly fire and the subsequent cover-up. Just this year, CREW uncovered shocking evidence that the Veterans Administration was purposefully blocking its administrators from diagnosing and treating PTSD in Iraq and Afghanistan vets. And all the while we've had reports that the administration failed to provide our troops the resources they needed in the field. Most recently, it was revealed the VA is blocking voter registration in their facilities and disenfranchising some of our most vulnerable troops.

It hasn't been all bad, though. We've made progress in the last 4 years as well - usually thanks to the Democrats. Early in the primaries, both Clinton and Obama sat down for serious - televised - discussions with young vets about the progress of the war, PTSD, health and education benefits, and more. To my knowledge, this was the first time since the war began that we had an honest national dialogue about what it truly means to support the troops. After a long fight, Democrats passed the 21st Century GI Bill, despite objections by both President Bush and Senator McCain.

Today, those successes continue as the Veterans Affairs Committee and the VA - after much hemming and hawing - plan to launch a massive campaign to raise awareness about and prevent suicide among our veterans.

Culturally, we are in a new space as well. Movies like Stop Loss, and In the Valley of Elah have created a much more complicated - and truer - vision of the troops and their experiences than the sanitized, heroic archetype paraded across the airwaves by political pundits. This trend, too, continues, most recently with the release of Generation Kill, by the creators of The Wire.

Changes to the cultural and political landscape now offer us a huge opportunity to permanently remove the troops as a weapon in the conservative arsenal and create more policies that provides real, tangible support for those who fight on our behalf. For me, this is a big part of a revamped foreign-policy. Young people - as troops, as activists, as now-respected members of the electorate - can help drive that change. This is a huge opportunity for us as a party and as a generation to do right by our peers and put our country back on track.

Netroots Nation, the blogger-spawned progressive conference formerly known as Yearly Kos, will be in Austin this week from Thursday through Sunday and Future Majority will be there in force.

If you're a young person, young at heart, or curious about the youth vote, here's where you'll find us:

Thursday
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Youth Caucus: 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM; Caucus, Room 18B

My flight gets in at 12:30 and I hope to make it to the latter half of the caucus, but look for Bondelli, Sarah, Jane or other FM contributors mixing with the crowd.

Friday
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Youth to Power Book Signing: 11:30 AM - 12PM; Exhibit Hall Ballroom D, IG Publishing booth #315.

I'll be signing books alongside fellow IG author and blogger Jeffrey Feldman. We also have a Facebook event for this - go RSVP and invite others.

What's Next for the Next Generation? 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM, Workshop, Room 18D.

Jane Fleming Kleeb of the Young Voter PAC joins Gina Glantz and others to discuss how to move a youth policy agenda after the elections.

Saturday
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Online Engagement to Offline Activism: 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM; Panel, Ballroom F

Myself, Jane Fleming Kleeb of the Young Voter PAC, Tony Cani of the Young Democrats, Sam Dorman of The League, Hans Riemer of the Obama Campaign, Maria Teresa Peterson of Voto Latino and Andrew Villaneuve of the Northwest Progressive Institute will lead a concrete discussion on tactics to engage young voters online and move that support offline into the field. Bring your own ideas and be prepared to share.

For those of you who are curious, you can view video of the youth vote panel from last year here.

Celebrity Bartender After Party: Cedar Door’s Biergarten, 2nd and Brazos. 10pm - Midnight.

Once the day is done, we're teaming up with Living Liberally and the Young Voter PAC for a big throw-down celebrity bartender event. From 10pm to Midnight, Markos of Daily Kos, Matt Stoller of Open Left, candidates Scott Kleeb and Darcy Burner and more will serve you drinks. All food and drinks will be free for the first hour. You can buy tix, which go to support the Young Voter PAC, here.

This will be a great way to start your final night in Austin, and if previous years are any indicator, we'll all take the party elsewhere until the wee hours of the morning.

More details below. Hope to see you in Austin.

Lots of stuff about McCain and Obama, but also a few movement-oriented pieces as well. Enjoy.

• Barack Obama authored an op-ed in today's New York Times in which he lays out his Iraq strategy. Here's my favorite part:

  As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

  In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

• This weekend, the New York Times did a hit-piece on Obama, looking to drive a wedge between him and his youthful supporters in the media narrative. Tim Fernholz has the proper response over at Tapped. Also at the Prospect, Courtney Martin has a slightly different take on Obama's "tacking to the center."
• David Frum is the latest conservative to try to make hay about young voters supposed-support of privatized accounts for Social Security.
• The LA Times profiles Joel Flatow. If you want to bring big-name musicians into politics, apparently he's the go-to guy. Only problem, he's also one of the dudes behind the RIAA's awesome strategy of suing its fans. This sucks, big time, and it's why groups like MFA losing their funding sucks even worse. I want musicians involved in politics to support smart copyright reform, not be reactionaries advocating on behalf of a dying business model. As such, getting rid of people like Flatow and delinking the two seems pretty important.
• Rock the Vote says that 3,100 bands signed up for their DemROCKracy contest. If each band registered only 25 fans, that would be 77,500 registrations. Bad ass.
• The Hip Hop Caucus Blog has a great look at the Jesse Jackson/Obama scandal framed as a generational issue within the black community and civil rights movement.
• Finally, John McCain calls college students "spoiled children. Awesome. Here's what I say to that:

Originally posted by Kat Barr on the Rock the Vote blog. Cross-posted with permission.

If you’ve ever read my blog posts, gotten me talking about voting rights and our democracy, or heard me ramble on about the miracle of a country founded on “we the people” (sorry if you have), you’d know I can get pretty seriously patriotic about America and the rights we have as voters to shape it.

So that’s why when I saw this article, and this one from last week, I was seriously pissed.

Here’s the background: a while ago, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs banned voter registration drives at its federally-run facilities across the country, including nursing homes, homeless shelters, and rehab centers.

The V.A. claims the “Hatch Act” prevents their facilities from allowing registration at V.A. facilities. But as Senator Daniel Akaka, chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, stated yesterday, that is bogus.

And as numerous democracy advocates have pointed out, state-run agencies are actually required by law to offer voter registration to clients, and a 1994 Executive Order said federal agencies may do the same.

Yet the V.A. still refuses to budge.

Wow. Banning the most basic action of a democracy from centers helping and housing men and woman who have been fighting for democracy. It makes my head spin.

Why do I care so much? Outside of the fact that this is completely convoluted, the V.A.’s action will disproportionally impact thousands of young Americans recently returned from serving in the Middle East.

Three-quarters of the men and women who have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan were under 30 years of age. Thousands of veterans are young Americans who could be participating in a presidential election for the very first time. Young Americans are giving their lives for our country.

To erect a barrier to allowing these young veterans, and all veterans, from registering to vote and participating in our democracy is wrong.

It should be the other way around. Just like state-run agencies – from food stamp offices to the Department of Motor Vehicles – are required to register their clients to vote, federally-run V.A. facilities should do the same. Centers should be helping their constituents update their registration address, get registered, and ensure they are given the tools for active participation.

I remember back in ’05 when I heard that solidiers stationed in Virginia were being (illegally) required to fill out additional paperwork to register to vote in the state. That was outrageous.

What the V.A. is doing is ten steps beyond outrageous.

There are hundreds of nonpartisan organizations working their tails off to register voters this year – let them come and register our veterans! Or better yet, encourage V.A. facilities to register their clients themselves. All it takes is one piece of paper and five minutes to help make sure another American has his or her say in their own future and that our democracy lives up to its incredible potential.

Note to the women running the Glamocracy blog: You have no idea what you are writing about.

I'm sorry to read that you're "sick of hearing about the youth vote." Since it's your job to write about politics for young women, that seems like a bit of a conundrum for you. Try not to think too hard about it; your head might explode. In the meantime, please do not demean young voters or the incredible accomplishment that is the dramatic rise in youth participation in this election cycle.

Yes, it pains me too when the media - of which you are a part - talks about Heidi's love of John McCain, or when an aging reporter talks about Rockin' the Vote. But Rock the Vote and P. Diddy are not the whole story of the youth vote. Neither are Lauren and Heidi, no matter how many Declare Yourself events they attend or PSAs they record.

Contrary to popular belief, the youth vote did not emerge sui generis from Barack Obama's winning combination of good looks and hope. A lot of people you've never heard of, people who have never met P. Diddy or Madonna, have worked hard for years to bring the youth vote to where it is today. You have no idea how long and how hard they worked, and what an accomplishment it is that the media now portrays young voters in a positive light. Your flip attitude demeans them and their work.

Get a clue about what you are writing about.

Update: Kay Steiger has more.