Response: Are Young Voters Taking Over the Party?

Ari Melber wrote a thoughtful piece in the Washington Independent in part responding to my blog post recapping the Democratic Convention. Ari had a valid critique of my final thoughts on the lack of youth at the podium addressing the convention:

There was, however, at least one major youth speaker on Thursday night at the stadium. Ray Rivera, 29, a Colorado state director for the Obama campaign, addressed the 80,000 person crowd — twice. He was promoting, naturally, a text message organizing program, which recruited 30,000 new numbers that night alone. There was a big map and everything. I followed up with Connery, but he was not impressed. He emailed from the Republican National Convention:

"I don’t count Ray Rivera’s time on the stage. He may be young, but his purpose on stage was not to represent youth at the convention, it was to list build for the campaign. He was not there as an advocate for young people on the many pressing issues we face, and even if he were, one slot in four nights would still be skimpy representation considering what young people have done for Democratic candidates since 2006."

So there. It doesn’t count and even if it did it’s not enough. But that vision is a bit too cramped.

It is good that Obama entrusted his operation in a key state like Colorado to a young operative; just as it was good for Obama to put so much faith in young web organizers who upended U.S. politics with their online strategy, social networking and web fund-raising. Joe Rospars, Sam Graham-Felsen and Chris Hughes, for example, are all 27 or younger.

In many ways, empowering young people without putting them in youth constituency silos is better than just checking the youth box with some official speaker. Rivera had a huge — probably nerve-racking — role on the Big Night to actually do something in his official role, albeit related to the youth vote, rather than just giving a quick talk about how Barack inspires students.

I actually agree with Ari that it is amazing - and more important in the long run - that young people like Rivera are given prominent campaign positions instead of "siloed" away in a constituency group. My fight wasn't with the Obama campaign, which is the example that a lot of us hold up to other campaigns in terms of breaking those silos down and including young people in a meaningful way.

My fight was with the DNC and the Convention Committee. The DNC is explicitly run as a constituency organization. You have multiple caucuses - AAPI, Black, Women, LGBT, Youth, etc. all fighting for attention - and resources - from the party. In fact, there are rules within the DNC Charter that require the DNC to provide certain levels of access (as delegates) to the convention to most of these groups. Those rules were very recently expanded to include LGBTQ, but young people were explicitly left out and the DNC opted instead to issue non-binding "recommendations" on youth participation.

YDA actually fought with the party over this in 2005/2006, and are planning on doing so again in the next few years. This is why young people were 16% of convention participants instead of the 19% that equals their share of the Democratic Electorate. It wasn't that there wasn't enough interest among young people to fill the delegate slots, it was that older party officials with more connections crowded them out.

Those affirmative action rules don't apply to speaking slots at the podium, and access to the podium is not an area in which young people can just "crash the gates." They need to be explicitly granted access. My point was that when given the option of featuring young speakers or not, of granting that level of access or not, the DNCC chose not to do so. It's not as if young people don't have important issues that are age specific that should be provided equal time at the convention. Seven speakers came out on Thursday evening to specifically address economic concerns and problems that they face:

American Voices Program

• Roy Gross – Michigan Teamster car transport driver affected by decline in car manufacturing
• Monica Early – New to campaigning, this Akron mother & grandmother is an Obama volunteer
• Janet Lynn Monacco – Struggling small business owner from
• Melbourne, FL with health issues
• Teresa Asenap – Albuquerque, New Mexico public school worker concerned about economy
• Pamela Cash-Roper – Unemployed nurse and lifelong Republican from North Carolina
• Barney Smith – Marion, Indiana plant worker - lost job of 30 yrs when plant moved to China

Is it really too much to ask that one of these speakers be a young person struggling with student debt or lack of health care? Or a non-college youth struggling to raise a family in the Bush economy?

Nevertheless, Ari is right that my critique is somewhat parochial when viewed in the context of how Obama is changing this dynamic. It is more important that young people are put in positions of power within campaigns and the Party structure without the need to section them off in a "youth silo." And I hold out hope that Obama, riding a wave of youth support, and a staff that does in fact have many young people in key positions, will make that a reality throughout all levels of the party.

But it's equally important to note that Obama is still the exception here, not the rule, and my purpose was to point to the tension that still exists within the party when it comes to giving young people a seat at the table. The convention speaking schedule was a visible symbol of that shortage of access young people still have within the party despite all of Obama's changes.