YDA Day 1: Manchester United (behind Hillary)

This weekend I’m at the YDA Fall Convention in Manchester, New Hampshire. Approximately 300 YDA members and leaders have flown in from across the country to discuss the organization’s plans for 2008, network, hear from various campaigns and Democratic leaders, and train each other on everything from best practices in facebook organizing to budgeting for your chapter. There are a variety of campaigns and legislators coming to address the convention. Big Dog Bill Clinton kicked off the conference earlier this evening. Elizabeth Edwards will be stopping by tomorrow, and Rep. Joe Courtney, famous for his razor thin, youth-propelled win in Connecticut will be here, as will others.

I’m here in two capacities. I’m helping out with a training session on blogging tomorrow morning, but mostly I’m just here as an observer to meet some YDA folks and get a feel for what they’re doing and planning for 2008.

Bill Clinton, an hour late but spot-on as usual in his remarks about young voters and the challenges we now face as a nation, a generation, and a world, was supposed to be the headline of the day, but the man who commands any room he enters was upstaged by the Young Dem who opened the conference. Gray Chenowyth, the President of the New Hampshire Young Democrats, used his opening remarks to conduct a power play on behalf of the Clinton campaign. After some red meat to the home crowd about the greatness of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, Chenowyth announced his resignation as New Hampshire YDA President effective Monday and declared support for Hillary Clinton.

Thanks to the Big-Dog’s presence as keynote for the opening session, about 8 or 10 TV crews were on the scene, and Chenowyth’s speech likely got picked up by local New Hampshire, and Boston TV stations (and potentially a few national ones), and there’s a rumor floating around that he may appear on the Today Show in a few days.

Apparently the move was not entirely unexpected. Chenowyth’s speech was vetted by the YDA leadership to make sure he didn’t overstep any of the legal boundaries that constrain the national or state organizations, but from the chatter in the lobby it sounds like it was a surprise to most attendees. That statement itself elicited a few boos, as well as a few comments about it being a shady move, but there was far more cheering, and most of the crowd erupted into a pro-Clinton chant.

In this, the attendees – mostly folks in their 20s and a few in their early 30s - seem to be reflective of all the latest youth polling. Thus far there appear to be far more Clinton supporters than detractors, and the Senator’s campaign has by far the most aggressive presence at the convention. I caught a few people passing around sign-up sheets during our long wait for the President to arrive, and they have a huge recruitment presence in the conference lobby.

Overall, for a campaign that has been noted mostly for its lack of youth outreach, and even outright disrespect for young voters, this reads like a well-planned media coup to try and fix negative perceptions caused by last week’s “plant” incident, and the remarks of Clinton pollster Mark Penn after the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner. It might also be a play to get some positive youth news and bump up Hillary’s support among New Hampshire youth, but I think this event is a little too inside-baseball, and the cultural disconnect between most young voters and the Young Dems still too large for it to really have that effect.

More tomorrow, when I'll be helping run a session on bloggling, learning how to run for a delegate position at the 2008 Democratic Convention, and participating in a 3-hour canvass/training in YDA's peer to peer field strategy.