Hillary Clinton

Young Democrats of America had a scheduled conference call this afternoon on GOTyV strategies and best practices with a special appearance by Sen. Hillary Clinton, and I thought I'd share a bit about what was discussed.

YDA Political Director Tony Cani and YDA Executive Director Alexandra Acker both opened the call by discussing best practices for getting out the youth vote, as well as describing the YDA GOTV efforts in eight states. Both discussed the success of YDA's "Young Voter Revolution" campaign, which has created over 100,000 peer-to-peer contacts so far during this campaign.

The "best practice" emphasized the most was simply engaging friends and neighbors about the election, as each person definitely has the ability to play that part. Cani noted that many activists can get wrapped up in activities on the front lines and in campaign offices and forget about talking to those that are not as involved.

Other best practices included staying away from negative appeals and visualizing/planning the casting of the ballot. Cani noted that Millennials are turned off by language like, "Young people may not usually vote, but..." Instead, to jibe with the Millennials' desire to be a part of something bigger, the current collective participation by this generation should be emphasized. Acker then stepped in to discuss the importance of getting young people to visualize the process of casting a vote. Acker explained that this can be done through vote pledges and probing questions asking youth where they're going to vote, how they're going to get there, and when during the day they will do so. The intention is to assist young voters in planning their day around voting; this has proven to be successful in the past.

YDA officers are currently in eight states: Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, California, Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Virginia. Acker outlined the efforts in a few of the states to give call participants a glimpse into what is happening on the ground.

• California: Local chapters have organized in Northern California to form a collaborative canvassing effort based out of Stockton, largely focused on rural areas. Acker noted that this was yielding the best quantitative results, saying that California's numbers were great and making it hard for any of the other efforts to compete.
• Colorado: The effort out of Boulder may be a bit surprising, Acker noted, because with Boulder containing the University of Colorado, the area is usually known as a "bastion of liberalism" within Colorado. Acker explained that even though this is usually the case, they weren't seeing much partisan activity on the ground. The YDA stepped in to strengthen GOTyV efforts for non-college youth.
• Arkansas and Utah: While neither state has been or will be a player in the presidential campaign, both states have YDA staff on the ground for several local races, in a primarily phone-based operation.

Before Sen. Clinton joined in, Cani reminded callers of YDA's voting reminder text messaging service. Youth can text "Vote Dem" to 35328 and get a reminder to vote on Election Day. Cani referenced the data showing that text message reminders improve turnout by nearly 5% (Mike wrote about this here).

Cani also explained a bit about the activity we would be seeing from YDA after the election. In odd-numbered years, YDA traditionally focuses on issue advocacy programs, and following this cycle, Cani said it wouldn't be any different. YDA will be providing support to Democratic legislators and other influential people by researching a few hand-picked issues deemed priorities by the organization.

Senator Clinton joined in after finishing a campaign event for Democratic candidate Bruce Lunsford in Kentucky. Clinton emphasized the importance of voting down-ballot among youth, pointing out that recent data showed 1 in 5 youth fail to vote in the local elections. Clinton expressed thanks for the support shown to both Sen. Obama's campaign and to her campaign in the primaries, but then said "we're in the World Series now," and that we must execute and get the job done.

Clinton fielded one question from a YDA member -- "What is the best way to keep people involved after the election, especially since we'll need lots of help with the problems we're facing?"

Clinton said that Democrats need an engaged, active Democratic National Committee to reach out to civic clubs in local communities and hold forums on campuses and discuss what the Democrats will be doing to solve the nation's problems. Sen. Clinton also reminded callers of the importance of recruiting good Democratic candidates for 2010 and 2012.

cross posted on the CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/blog/

I'm on so many list serves that its hard to keep track. But this press release caught my attention:

This Wednesday @3pm there will be a Huge GOTV Rally in Rochester, NY featuring Senator Hillary Clinton and Democratic challengers Eric Massa (NY-29), Dan Maffei (NY-25), Alice Kryzan (NY-26). Address is below:

Monroe Community College

Stabins Physical Education Complex (Building 10)

1000 East Henrietta Road

Rochester, NY 14424

Parking will be available in Lots G, M, and M1

For those of you who live in the upstate New York area, this is a great rally to attend featuring our own Senator Clinton and 3 great Democratic challengers who can swing their district from red to blue in this Election.

Dan Levin is the President of the College Democrats of NY

I just got back from my panel at the Sea Change forum called "The Youngest Voter." Attendance was low and two of the panel participants didn't show up. I think the fact that the forum is within the perimeter and only accessible by delegates and participants is killing the attendance levels.

Even so, the panel was excellent. The focus was a documentary film by Michael Moore protege Jason Pollock called "The Youngest Candidate." The film follows four teenagers as they wage their first campaigns for mayor, city council, and school board. None of the candidates win, but the film presents a hard headed look at their idealism, determination, mistakes, and small victories on the campaign trail.

Jason is still looking for a distributor and anyone who can help him out should do so. This is a great, great film that needs to be seen.

I don't have much more to say about Day Two at the convention. I'll have another post shortly about the Trick or Vote party. The convention itself was intense. I was stuck up in the nosebleeds stage left, but even from their the roar of the crowd and thousands of unity signs were pretty amazing. I thought Clinton's speech did what it needed to do, but to be honest I've never been a fan of her speaking style. I just can't get as emotionally involved when she speaks. Anyway, I'm sure you've all already read a dozen news articles critiquing Hilary's speech so I won't waste more words on that. I will say that for my money, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer absolutely blew me away. I love that guy.

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.

CIRCLE has finally released their fact sheet summary of youth turnout in the presidential primary contests. The numbers are much the same as what we reported last week. Here's what you need to know:

• In the states for which data is available, 6.5 million young voters (17 - 29) participated in either the Democratic or Republican Presidential primaries.
• Overall turnout rose from 9% (recorded in 2000, the last comparable cycle), to 17%.
• This is the third consecutive cycle in which youth turnout increased.
• This is the first time youth turnout has increased three cycles in a row since 18 - 20 year olds were first granted the right to vote in 1971.
• In the 17 states for which comparable exit polling is available from 2000, all but one state (New York) saw an increase in youth turnout.
• Of those 17 states, 10 saw at least a 10 point jump in youth turnout (NH, MA, GA, MO, TX, TN, IA, MS, OH, OK).
• Obama captured the Democratic youth vote 60 - 38%.

Also remember from the Rock the Vote's fact sheet and last week's post mortem that young voter's share of the electorate rose from 9.4% in 2004 to 14.3% in 2008, and young voters participated in the Democratic primary over the GOP primary at a rate of 2 - 1.

The most interesting piece of new data in the CIRCLE report is the candidate breakdown in the GOP contest. More young Republicans voted against John McCain than voted for him, and he barely inched out Mike Huckabee to capture a plurality of youth votes among the top 4 candidates. As for Ron Paul - the so-called GOP youth candidate, he only received 10% of the youth vote. Can we finally put to rest the fiction that Ron Paul is the conservative youth candidate? At best he had a highly tech savvy core of youth supporters that amounted to very little at the polls.

It was reported yesterday that Congressman Paul is holding his own "shadow convention" this year. It will be interesting to see who shows up.

On the Op-Ed page today, the New York Times is running a surprisingly information-free look back at "what went wrong" with the Clinton campaign. How bad is it? Apparently, Clinton lost because she is too much like Hermione Granger. Seriously. How bad is it? So bad that Mark Penn and Michael Kinsley offer the best of slim pickings. There was one bright light though.

Buried in the 10th paragraph of an 11 graph piece (the most column inches of any contributor), in which he argues that it's not his fault, Mark Penn says this:

Are there a lot of other things the campaign could have done differently? Of course. We should have taken on Mr. Obama more directly and much earlier, and we needed a different kind of operation to win caucuses and to retain the support of superdelegates. From more aggressively courting young people earlier to mobilizing the full power of women, there are things that could have been done differently.

Emphasis is mine. This is a far cry from Mark Penn at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner:

At least two of Hillary Clinton’s upper-echelon advisers, Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn, were decidedly unimpressed .

“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”

Penn added, “Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state.”

While the importance of young voters as a Democratic constituency is far from the only lesson to be gleaned from this primary campaign, it is an important one. Young Voters in Iowa were subjected to major outreach from the Obama campaign and from outside partisan and nonpartisan organizations including (but not limited to) the Young Voter PAC, Rock the Vote, the Young Democrats, and the Student PIRGs. As a result, they overperformed their share of the electorate and came out in equal numbers to the "reliable" senior demographic. That was the beginning of the end for Clinton.

Here's to hoping that other Democratic candidates down the ballot learn that lesson. And here's to hoping that they know that there are many resources available to their campaigns to help learn how to reach that audience. From live-blogging here at Future Majority, to working with organizations like Young Voter PAC and Rock the Vote, or local youth orgs that may be organizing in their state. Reaching young voters is not rocket science, and there are many folks willing to help you do it.

Yesterday we made history in this country. The first african american nominee of a major party. Sorry I haven't posted much on it yet, but I'm waiting on final stats about the youth vote in this process before I put out my final thoughts. In the meantime, Joe has an excellent message for Hillary Clinton and her supporters, and if you missed it last night, you owe it to yourself to watch Obama's speech.

As we wind down the primary season, there is less and less reliable data about youth turnout and pretty much no comparative data from previous cycles. It's been a long time since we've come this far into the process.

Nevertheless, here's what we do know from CIRCLE and CNN exit polling:

I'll note that while there is no comparative data, the youth "share of the electorate" in both states is higher than the 2004 average of 9%.

Clinton won the youth vote handily in Kentucky, pulling in 54% of the 18 - 29 vote to Obama's 41%. 2% were "uncommitted." She won even greater margins among white youth.

Obama won the youth vote handily in Oregon, pulling in 71% to Clinton's 29%. He won by the same margin among white youth.

Political junkie that I am, I cannot wait for this thing to be over. Just a few more weeks . . .

So how much is the youth vote worth this year? Apparently $500,000 a pop if you are a superdelegate.

The Huffington Post is running a shocker of a piece claiming that Clinton donor Haim Saban offered the Young Democrats of America access to $1 million in funds if their two remaining superdelegates - David Hardt and Crystal Strait - endorsed Sen. Clinton:

One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post.

Haim Saban, the billionaire entertainment magnate and longtime Clinton supporter, denied the allegation. But four independent sources said that just before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Saban called YDA President David Hardt and offered what was perceived as a lucrative proposal: $1 million would be made available for the group if Hardt and the organization's other uncommitted superdelegate backed Clinton.

YDA isn't answering anymore questions about this incident on the record, but if this is true, all I can say is "good for the Young Democrats!" for turning the offer down. At a time when Sen. Obama's campaign is threatening to defund 527 organizations (YDA is a 527), and many progressive youth organizations still struggle to raise their yearly budgets, YDA's leadership, this could not have been an easy choice for YDA leaders. $1 million is a substantial portion of YDA's yearly budget. This was the ultimate Faustian bargain dangled in front of them and they turned it down. They made the ethical choice to forgo what might be best for themselves politically and faithfully represent the will of their constituents in the nominating process.

It was even braver considering the potential fallout from other donors close to Saban:

Members of the Young Democrats agonized about the potential fallout of Saban's call; his financial offer represented one-third of the group's 2008 budget. Democratic officials and fundraisers were consulted about how to respond, and at times the discussions were "emotional," one participant said. "It is scary for them, Haim is very powerful, he has great influence over donors who give to them."

Another source said that Hardt and others were acutely aware of Saban's status within Democratic circles and were concerned that their organization would suffer long-term harm if they declined his offer or if news of the proposal became public.

It's a rather unfortunate dynamic in progressive politics that such donors have so much influence over the process, but that's how it works. Usually it's not even accurate to talk of donors, but rather "donor networks." If you piss-off the wrong donor, their network can be closed to you forever. So it was a gutsy move for YDA to snub a major donor like that. But I'm convinced it was the right move. Taking that money would have been disastrous for YDA in a number of ways -- not least in that endorsing Sen. Clinton over Obama would put the YDA leadership totally out of touch from the will of the surging youth vote, the very people they are supposed to represent. In terms of organizational branding and PR, it would most likely be taken as indicative of an organizational culture in which the leadership worked to protect and further their own political advancement at the expense of the membership. If YDA had taken the deal, those observations would have been right. Kudos to them for doing the right thing.

So where do YDA endorsements stand? Last week, Crystal Strait endorsed Sen. Obama. Her counterpart, Francisco Domenech, endorsed Clinton months ago. David Hardt, the President of YDA, and the person to whom the offer was allegedly made, has yet to endorse a candidate. Last week he released a statement indicating that he would wait until all votes were cast before making his endorsement.

By the by, this is yet another reason why I think my arguments for more transparency, and some basic guidelines, in how YDA and CDA superdelegates cast their ballots are called for and indeed long overdue.

So there were some elections yesterday (the madness never stops), and I figure we should at least mention them here.

In West Virginia, Sen. Clinton won in a landslide (as predicted). She defeated Obama 67 - 26%, and she even captured young voters who chose her 59 - 35%. I haven't checked, but I believe this is only the third state in which Clinton won the 18 - 29 demographic. Young voters were 14% of the Democratic electorate. Unfortunately, there is no data from previous cycles against which to compare that, however, based on averages, it is likely that young voters increased their share over previous cycle.

In a race that saw major coverage in the netroots, Scott Kleeb won his primary agains uber-DINO (Democrat in Name Only) against Tony Raimondo. Scott will now compete for the seat vacated by Chuck Hagel in November. This was a good win for Democrats and for young voters. Scott is a huge friend of the youth organizing community and many of you are probably familiar with his wife, Jane Fleming Kleeb, who is an all around youth-organizing rock star and blogs here at Future Majority occasionally under the name of her organization, the Young Voter PAC. Jane blogged the race all day yesterday and you can read her dispatches here.

Finally, we also won a long-shot race in Mississipi. In a deep-red distrinct, Travis Childers defeated his Republican opponent Greg Davis. This was the third special election in a row in which a Democrat defeated a Republican in a red district, and it's an indication of just how big a wave we might see in November. It's also another reason why we need to maximize the youth vote in every state. If victories like this are possible in the deepest or red districts, 50 million Millennials can help make this one of the biggest landslides we're likely to see in our lifetime.

For more, don't miss Joe's take on yesterday's elections and what it all means: