Democrats

After weeks and weeks of planning, the NY College Dems visited central PA this past weekend. More than 150 students participated in the trip, arriving late Friday night and canvassing the neighborhoods in PA all day Saturday.

I traveled to Bloomsburg, PA with a group of 39 students from NY. We stayed at a barn from Obama supporters who were nice enough to let us crash there. Other students went into Hazelton, Stroudsburg, Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia.

Our group in Bloomsburg, PA knocked on more than 2,017 doors, gathering 700 new voter IDs. In total, an estimated 2,925 names were searched through on walk lists.

View awesome pictures of the trip here: http://collegedemsny.com/media.php

Total Results from the trip are still coming in but every student had an awesome time and we definitely made a difference for Obama

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.

This was in the Featured Video slot in the sidebar yesterday. Normally I'm inclined to leave video - even really good video - there. But this sermon from Joe is just too good. Amen.

Everyone's been talking or months about how this could be the "YouTube election." In 2006, YouTube had an impact as campaigns and regular folks used it to record and distribute "gotacha" messages (think George Allen and "Macaca"). But in 2007, the campaigns took an active role in shaping their image on YouTube and using the platform to speak directly to voters. It's been over a year since the Democrats first launched their campaigns, and a lot of video has come and gone.

Here's a great run-down of what each campaign tried:

Bumped - Looks like Obama took both Wisconsin and Hawaii, as expected. According to CNN exit polling, youth share of the electorate in Wisconsin increased to 16%, and early exit polling data shows Obama dominating Clinton 3 - 1 among 18 - 29 year olds. We'll see how that adjusts in the next few hours. There are no exit polls for Hawaii at this time (time difference, maybe?). I'll have a more full analysis tomorrow after CIRCLE crunches the data on youth turnout.
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Both Hawaii and Wisconsin cast their ballots for the Democratic nominee today. There's no prior data for young voters in Hawaii, but here's a preview of Wisconsin. As usual, most of this data is courtesy of CIRCLE.

Youth Population: 895,478
Youth Share of Electorate: 22%
Youth Share in 2004: 11%
White non-Hispanic: 84%
Other Race/Ethnicity: 16%
College Students: 22%

Obama is the favorite in Wisconsin, though the polls have been tight in these final weeks. I heard on the news this morning that there was recently a rally for him at the University of Wisconsin, Madison attended by over 20,000 people. Wisconsin also has something of a history for youth activism, the race is increasingly tight, what with the media storyline describing this as a dog fight for every last delegate. And the campaigns have gotten nasty with dueling negative ads in the state. In other words, it's a highly competitive environment. I'll be watching to see just how high youth turnout is, and whether or not it approaches young voter's potential share of the electorate.

With Obama and Clinton neck and neck in the race for the Democratic nomination, Super Delegates - party members, elected officials, and others who will automatically be granted a vote at the party's nominating convention - are getting a lot of ink these days.

Super Delegates sounds like a lot of old white guys in a smoke filled room - and in some cased, that's exactly what they are - but there are also a number of young Super Delegates, and it may be that they will have an outsized-say in who our nominee will be this year.

Here's a quick look at all the super delegates (to my knowledge) that are under the age of 36. The ones that are in bold are in the leadership of the College and Young Democrats of America. I'll have a longer post up later today outlining my thoughts on the criteria by which they should determine how to cast their ballot.

Update: I've added in whether or not these delegates have pledged to support a candidate. Most of this information comes from the Democratic Convention Watch. Where information conflicts with rumors in the youth vote community or with conversations I myself have had with the delegates, I've marked their status as "uncertain."

Warrantless wiretapping, the continuing war - the Democrats in Congress don't seem to be getting much work done. Fortunately, other Democrats are picking up the slack.

Connecting community service and political activism is a terrific idea, especially for engaging younger voters who are highly likely to view community work as a more effective outlet for change than the political process. Democrats Work is building bridges to ease those people into the political process while generating a positive image for the party in communities across the country- even in "red" areas like Arkansas. More great news coverage after the jump. Click here to see if there's a Democrats Work chapter in your area.

Via BoingBoing - a chart comparing the issue positions of all the presidential candidates - Democrats and Republicans.

Matt Singer is the CEO of Forward Montana, a home-grown non-profit that trains, mobilizes, and elects new progressive leaders in Montana. This isn't his assigned guest-posting topic, but he can't help himself.

The New York Times has a new poll of young voters available. The poll was done in partnership with CBS and MTV.

Some of the news is wholly unsurprising. Young voters "are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage." In other words, we're all a bunch of dirty, f*cking hippies.

Until you read the next sentence: "The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion."

wHa?!?!?

Presidential debates targeted at youth have a checkered history. In 1992, Clinton famously appealed to young voters with his appearance in an MTV/Rock the Vote debate where he answered that most substantive of policy questions - "Boxers or Briefs?" Then in 2004, at a Democratic forum, CNN and Rock the Vote again cut to the quick of current policy debates by asking a detailed question about the role of technology in our lives - "Mac or PC?"

It's that time again. 25 youth organizers/organizations (myself included) are getting together to push Democratic candidates to participate in a pre-primary forum addressing issues that concern the Millennial Generation. Rock the Vote will again be the sponsor of the debate, and broadcast partner is still TBD.

It's easy to be cynical about this, considering past incarnations, but this is an important media event that will reach millions of eyeballs. Considering the state of television and print journalism today, it may be the only chance to give a mass audience of Millennials a substantive look at the candidates beyond the simple caricatures the media has established.

There are a lot of ways that these debates could be improved upon. CNN/YouTube are sponsoring their own debate that will consist primarily of questions submitted via YouTube. That's an interesting model that may help to democratize the Q&A process and avoid the "overframing" that plagued the CNN debate in '04. I've always enjoyed the IRC back-channel talks at conferences like PDF - maybe some sort of running commentary could be given prominent coverage online or in the "crawl" . . . ?

Y'all are a smart bunch that read this site - what ways do you see new media potentially creating a more substantive and engaging debate? Something that our generation will not just watch (and hopefully participate in), but also walk away from a more informed and energized voter? Something you won't want to mock or be indifferent to the day after.

What issues would you like to see addressed that aren't being looked at by the media (aka, how do we make this about more than the cost of John Edwards' haircut)? I can think of a couple that I'd like to see:

• Where do the candidates stand on Net Neutrality what actions would they take as president to protect it?
• Nail down Barack Obama on some policy specifics w/r/t Global Warming and Health Care. Knock him off his rhetoric and into the real world for a bit.
• Get Hillary to talk honestly about her plan for Iraq - long-term bases, troop deployment, the role of diplomacy, etc.
• Get them to commit to supporting national election reforms that help more young people vote - affirming residency on campus, same day registration, mail-in voting, etc.
• Talk about how they plan to make college affordable and alleviate the massive debt the young people must assume to enter the middle class.

It's still early in the process of figuring out the structure and content of this debate, and you've actually got a a chance to have some input into that process. So what would you like to see? What potential pitfalls need to be avoided at all costs?

Below the jump I've included the letter that was sent to the Democratic campaigns urging them to participate (this version was addressed Sen. Edwards). Give it a read, and if you are a progressive leader, or run a youth organization and want to lend your support, send me an email and I'll connect you to the right folks.