Democratic Party

As you saw in today's Quick Hits, CBS News has a great story up about McCain's lack of appeal to youth voters.

The article starts with observations of McCain's lack of comfort with technology, the thing that binds most Millennials together. But then it digs deeper into the dissonance that exists between McCain's stances on issues and the increasingly liberal views on the Millennial Generation.

Of course, when it comes to the youth vote in this election, any Republican nominee would begin the race at a significant disadvantage. Young people are clearly skewing to the left this election year, identifying more with the Democratic Party and embracing more liberal positions on so-called wedge issues by sizeable majorities. They've supported more lenient approaches to dealing with illegal immigrants, agreed that all citizens should have healthcare (even if the government has to provide it to those who can't afford it) and supported either same-sex marriage or civil unions for homosexual couples. Meanwhile, John McCain has wavered on immigration, his healthcare plan has been described as “total laissez-faire liberty” and he opposes both same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt.

I think that many Millennials would forgive John McCain for refining his positions on issues, as Millennials are pragmatic by nature and, in the end, want the best solution, not the purest ideology. But McCain's problem is that he has switched his positions on issues clumsily, such as immigration, Bush's tax cuts, and whether or not he's able to understand the U.S. economy. That would theoretically undermine his ability, in many Millennials' eyes, to offer any expertise at digging this country out of its rut.

So then McCain and the Republicans, understanding this, are forced into a decision. Do they hand the massive Millennial Generation over to the Democrats for good by discouraging their participation in this election, or do they start trying to build a relationship with young people with the remaining time left in order to strengthen it down the road? While they'd be wise to do the latter, it doesn't look good.

Between February 1 and July 31, Obama held thirty-two campaign events in college towns; McCain held three. The McCain campaign has yet to publicly announce an official youth outreach or youth vote campaign director. On the other hand, Obama has hired former Rock the Vote political director Hans Reimer. Not surprisingly, young Republicans have complained about the McCain campaign's poor efforts at the grassroots level and failure to make use of existing networks. "They definitely haven't reached out to the younger generation as strongly as I hoped they would," an organizer for the Young Republicans in South Carolina recently told a local newspaper. "It's a big mistake. You've got to create something that people want to be a part of. I'm just not getting that feeling this go-round." A young conservative political strategist named David All concurred, remarking to the Washington Post that "Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in."

One more thing I found to be interesting.

"Let me just start by saying that it would not be unheard of for a Republican candidate to win the youth vote," says Justin York, a grassroots youth organizer for McCain in Florida and an incoming junior at the University of Central Florida (UCF). York points out that Ronald Reagan, nearly McCain's age in 1984, won the majority of youth voters in his reelection bid and George H.W. Bush, at the age of 64, also captured the majority of youth voters four years later. And if York's organizing efforts in Florida pay off, perhaps McCain can repeat their successes.

Not so fast, Justin. The problem with York's first statement is that he's living in the 1980s. With today's youth, it would be unheard of for a Republican to win the youth vote. Ronald Reagan did enjoy success with Generation X. But Generation X is certainly different than the engaged, institutional, liberal Millennials. Justin also seems to be ignoring the 1990s. In 1992, the youth vote soared, but Bill Clinton was favored by the youth by a 44 percent to 34 percent (Bush) to 22 percent (Perot) margin. In 1996, Clinton again was favored, this time over Dole, by a 53 percent to 34 percent margin. Granted, many 1992 voters did not vote at all in 1996, but even so, the Republicans clearly did not enjoy any appreciation from that demographic.

McCain and the Republicans are treating (and hoping) the Millennials are like Generation X, a generation that, at worst for the Republicans, splits their vote somewhat evenly between the GOP and the Democrats, and is ambivalent about politics. But fortunately for the Democratic Party and our democracy, Millennials are different. They are engaged, they are liberal, and come November 4th, all signs point to them turning out and voting for Democrats in large numbers.

Correction - I've been informed that I'm using the term VAN incorrectly here. It is the Voter File itself, not the VAN, that is the impediment here because the voter file is what contains the out-of-date data on young voters. Also I should note that Party Builder is a wide set of tools and the functionality I'm discussing here specifically is the neighbor-to-neighbor field program.

On Friday I went to a presentation for bloggers on the DNC's new field tools - Party Builder. Still in beta, Party Builder is essentially a neighbor-to-neighbor decentralized field tool that lets local activists access and use the Voter Activation Network (VAN) to canvass people within a few hundred yards of their house. Party Builder will also let users download and customize select, approved pieces of campaign literature. Eventually, this customizable content and distributed model will allow the DNC to deploy micro-targeted field campaigns at the national and local level. You can see an older demo of Party Builder here, but the stuff they showed us on Friday still isn't online.

This is going to be a great tool that will help Democratic candidates up and down the ticket with their field work. Unfortunately, it's going to be almost useless in reaching young voters this cycle. As anyone who's worked in youth organizing knows, the VAN is almost worthless in reaching young voters - particularly students - who move on a yearly basis: dorm to dorm; dorm to apartment; apartment to apartment; city to city. This means that the VAN is almost always out of date.

The obvious fix is to allow trusted users to upload new information that supplements and corrects the VAN. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards this time around. I brought this up during the presentation, and the DNC is well aware of the problem. They suggested that sort of functionality would not be included in the initial launch but would be in included in a version 2.0 for the 2010 or 2012 elections.

In the meantime, they recommended that youth organizations continue relying on strategies from 2004 and 2006 to ID and GOTV young voters - creating ad hoc voter files using Facebook and campus registries, etc. (A good reference for what works in reaching young voters can be found at Young Voter Strategies (pdf). I'd also recommend reading the final report from the Minnesota Youth Coordinated Campaign (pdf).

While the VAN data and walk lists generated by Party Builder will be of limited use to youth organizers this cycle, it was suggested that the content editor/downloader might be of use to youth organizers who want to be on message with the state coordinated campaigns. Theoretically, someone who wanted to canvass their dorm, apartment building, or local bars/coffee shops could sign up for Party Builder, customize and download some pre-approved lit, and distribute them at those locations. Decisions as to what issues and messages will be contained in these lit pieces will be made at the level of the state coordinated campaign tables.

In the last few years we've learned that the messenger and the medium matter far more than the message in turning out young voters, but if we want the national, state, and local campaign literature to address youth issues, we're going to need to get strong representatives a seat at these coordinating tables.

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.

As part of a larger examination into young people and their split from one sect of the political world to the other, I’ve been doing a lot of research into the youth evangelical movement.

I am – as a Kansan, always curious about this ultra-right group of people, what they are up to, how they are organizing, and how they are essentially doing what What’s the Matter with Kansas claims the poor sell themselves out for values votes. I would argue that evangelicals do the same thing. While we have a community of people who believe that it is their holy destiny to vote in the interest of their God – I see so many who sell out their own beliefs for a narrow agenda.

I mention that but, honestly my post has nothing to do with that – the larger piece I’m working on for Wiretap will. I don’t even want to address the irony that I’m watching the X-Files episode Signs and Wonders which is all about a Pentecostal minister that uses snake handling in his church but it turns out he’s actually Satan…

So, I started reading Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement by Lauren Sandler as part of this bigger project. I’m honestly not very far into it but what I’ve read thus far, just of Sandler’s interviews and questions, exploration, and the like of those who are intensely involved in this movement – has given me more of an understanding of the type and structure of organization and political organizing that is going on.

This seems particularly fitting given Mark's stellar interview with The Dude yesterday.

We need a political infrastructure for young people that will both cultivate future progressive leaders and drive new and diverse youth towards higher levels of progressive political participation. Below is a working list of the broad challenges associated with current progressive youth politics:

• Progressive Political Programs Focus Exclusively on Youth Activists: Political programs and leadership training’s engage a small number of politically savvy young people and fail to mobilize new youth to participate in progressive politics
• Progressive Youth Activists Are Not Diverse: Progressive youth activists lack significant economic, ethnic, and regional diversity, as the same student activists are recycled between a few progressive groups

• Missing Strategic Management or System to Disseminate Information: Progressive political organizations often lack defined objectives and benchmarks to measure success; and they do not effectively share research and best practices to benefit the broader progressive community
• Absence of a Progressive Identity and Infrastructure to Connect Young People: Unaffiliated, small, and self-funded progressive groups or individuals are not easily connected to a larger progressive political community
• Progressive Activism and Democratic Politics Remain Miles Apart: Party leaders, activists, elected officials, and young people do not connect their support for progressive issues and values with support for the Democratic Party

What should be added or removed from the list? Many of the Dem/Progressive organizations that focus on youth and are financially secure have lacked vision and strategic capacity to address these critical problems. These challenges require action from our generation and the progressive community.

Sorry for the light posting today. The site swallowed a half written post early this morning and my schedule hasn't allowed me the time to rewrite it yet. I'll probably get to it after dinner. In the meantime, here's a few interesting articles I came across today covering some things we've touched on before, and all of which could be full blogs in their own right:

• I was checking out the New Era Colorado website to prepare for an interview and came across this stat (emphasis mine):

  The 2004 elections marked a year of unprecedented attention focused on young voters. However, immediately after the loss of Presidential candidate John Kerry, newspapers and political pundits overwhelmingly accused young people of not being worth the investment. Today, only 8% of political party chairs identify young people as the most important demographic for the “long-term success of their party,” compared to 21% who name senior citizens.

  That, to put it mildly, is what we call a problem.

• In what is either a devious strategy to exclude young people from the debate, a sign of financial jeopardy, or DC insider-dom gone mad (or some combination thereof), The Politico has decided to lay off all of its young staffers. Combined with their incredible knack for getting shit wrong, this move puts The Politico slightly above NewsMax on my reading list. But it still does have that shiny Web two-point-oh look.
• Anya Kamenetz continues her reporting on the student loan scandals, this time uncovering some connections between corporate lenders and congressional PACS, and wondering about the practices of bigger corporate lenders like Nelnet and Sallie Mae.

  Is this something y'all would like to hear more about? It's a little outside our normal realm of conversation, which tends toward the strategic rather than nitty gritty policy. If so, what angle would you be most interested in talking about? The blow-by-blow details? Why its' important in the grand scheme? How the candidates should be playing this in their messaging to young voters? Candidates responses? What's most interesting to you and what's the best way to leverage this to increase young voter visibility in this election cycle?

  More after the jump.