"And I would have won that election except for those meddling kids!"

Here's a question. Why is it that in the last 5 years all of the most exciting things that have happened in progressive youth politics have happened outside of the Democratic Party structure? Culturally relevant campaigns, peer to peer tactics, leveraging of Facebook and other new technologies for organizing purposes, viral video - as much as these have had break-through moments in youth organizing, those moments have come by and large from new institutions that are disconnected from the party - not from the College or Young Democrats.

Some of this had to do with the willingness of funders to put money into new projects which, of necessity, are structured at 501c nonprofit organizations. Part of it has to do with the fact that for a long time the College and Young Democrats were considered ineffectual by the party and unappealing to their own generation - essentially neutering the organizations.

But some of the blame for that also lies with the state and local parties, who for a long time have been hostile to young voters - withholding money and resources, and exploiting young people for free labor without ever addressing their issues or providing a seat at the table.

The latest example is Alma Sanford, a Davidson County (Tennessee) Democratic Party Regional Chair. In an email sent to Addison Pate, President of the DC Young Democrats, Sanford expressed concern about the propriety of a phone banking operation by the Yound Dems, who were using the county headquarters to GOTV young voters for the upcoming Nashville mayoral race. Her email can be read here, along with a response from Addison Pate.

Essentially the whole affair boils down to this - some of the local alt-weeklies and dailies in Nashville haven't been kind to Sanford's preferred candidate, Bob Clement, and Ms. Sanford assumed that any attempt to GOTV the youth vote, who read those papers, would automatically be "partisan" by default and unfairly detrimental to her candidate. In response, Addison Pate has suspended Young Dem phone banking activity out of the party headquarters until the matter can be resolved before the county Executive Committee. Two local blogs, Silence isn't Golden and Nashville for the 21st Century both have good coverage of the issue.

I've exchanged a few emails with Pate, who assures me that Sanford's opinions and actions are not representative of the County Party, which maintains generally good relations with the Young Democrats. Rather, this is the action of one person.

And yet, in my opinion, her attitude is representative of too many who are lodged in our state and local parties across the country. In the view of these people, young voters are dumb and easily swayed by superficial concerns. We're only good for free manual labor or for pumping up Democratic numbers in the general election. We have no business in primaries, where the big boys decide who gets on the ticket. The idea that increased youth turnout is a good in and of itself for all Democrats and for our politics (and not just a preferred or individual candidate) doesn't cross their mind.

This is yet another reason why young people have been so reluctant to get involved in Democratic Party politics. This is why so much innovation in the last 5 years happened outside the party rather than within it. Too many local parties don't have room for someone who isn't willing to be a cog in someone else's machine. Why would any young voter want to be part of an organization that looked down on them or actively discouraged their participation? In that light, with so much new donor money available for the asking, it makes perfect sense that young people would abandon the party to start their own competing and parallel institutions.