Democratic Party

When Barack Obama was elected a little over a month ago, he spoke on the shores of Lake Michigan about what it would take to reassemble our country.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

And with that context, I'd like to take a look at something Mike brought to our attention on Thursday. Thomas Bates and Jason Carter from Democrats Work, an organization that aims to mobilize grassroots Democrats to work on visible, tangible service projects in their local communities, penned a piece in Roll Call this week encouraging the DNC to restructure itself to emphasize service instead of politics as usual.

This would be a brilliant move for a couple of reasons.

1. It obviously keeps the large grassroots activism of the Obama campaign alive. Many of those people who were in Obama's organization were some of the most fervent supporters we have seen in recent campaigns. We can't afford to let them fall by the wayside as past campaigns have done. We need to harness their energy by asking them to do something. As they invest more time into these projects and the Democratic Party, we build brand loyalty with the Democratic Party. These supporters are not only watching the Democratic stars on TV, hoping they'll vote the right way, or sign this bill into law, etc.; they're out in the streets, donating their own time and taking ownership of their party.
2. As we all know, Millennials are fanatical about service. There is no better way to not only maintain -- but increase -- the number of those identifying with the Democratic Party among 18-29 year olds. There are many people our age who have the typical Millennial progressive views on issues, but they don't see them in the operation of the Democratic Party because the fundraising and ads look too much like the GOP in action. A party rooted in service to others would be a large magnet for most Millennial voters -- already one of the most important voting blocs in our electorate. This approach would it make much harder for people to say Democrats don't stand for anything.
3. Finally, it would make the Republican Party look incredibly self-centered and ancient. While the Democrats would be doing canned food drives, cleaning up communities, and establishing relationships with residents at the street level all over the country, the GOP would be relying on the classic 20th Century direct mail-fundraising and ad strategy. Fox News, subtly telling voters that Democrats are angry people who want to orchestrate the demise of the United States from within, would suddenly turn into a parody of itself, thanks to these voters looking out their windows and seeing young, impressive Democrats having fun outside, picking up litter. People would see Democrats doing something. Alternatively, Republicans, trying to pick between Neiman Marcus-wearing Sarah Palin and venture capitalist Mitt Romney to find a standard-bearer for 2012, would alternatively seem too focused on achieving short-term political gain to responsibly take control of the country.

Back in the middle part of the Nineteenth Century, party organizations were a community affair. Picnics and dances and dinners were held, not just to get votes, but to cultivate relationships in the local community. Of course, this social dedication to one's party through the investment of time would lead to increased support on election day.

At a time when the nation again seems to be trending toward being more civically engaged, the Democratic Party has a chance to re-define patriotism, restoring it to something closer to its original meaning: the service and responsibility Obama called for in his Election Night address. Should the party fail to do this, it would be doing itself and all of us a disservice. (No pun intended.)

Over at techPresident this week, Tom Watson wrote about the need for a counterpart to Obama's change.gov website in Congress. While the presidential transition site is constantly changing and is interactive, allowing for the opportunity for a two-way communication between the president and the American people, the legislative hub -- Speaker.gov -- is stale.

We speak of Speaker.gov, that overlooked, less-than-slick but chock-a-block wonk's paradise, laden with bill signings, policy statements, and legislation - the web world of Nancy Pelosi, whose growing control of an expanded Democratic caucus almost certainly makes her digital commons the second most important piece of wired political real estate.

And the Speaker's territory is already something of a two-way street: as she wrote (in a letter!) this summer during the brief but tangy Capitol Hill Video Standards Brouhaha (well-chronicled here by Dave Witzel) she's well-versed in social media tools. "Like many other Members, I have a blog, use YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Digg, and other new media to communicate with constituents, and I believe they are vital tools toward increasing transparency and accountability."

Nonetheless, Pelosi's blog - The Gavel - is a bit on the staid side. It's a straight blog with thousands of postings in the last two years but few comments, and the brand is, well, understated when compared to Change.gov. Yet, it's more more content-laden. For example, there are 157 posts labeled civil rights, 412 on Iraq, and 174 on energy independence.

Despite all the policy goodness, The Gavel isn't exactly a center for blogosphere attention, from the left or the right. In two years, it's garnered 1,624 "blog reactions" (links in) on Technorati - and it doesn't often pop up on Memeorandum. Compare that to Change.gov, which has garnered 8,386 blog links in less than a month.

Watson argues that with a strengthening Democratic influence on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave., Pelosi may actually have the larger change potential, especially if the legislative branch gains more autonomy with the departure of the Bush administration. I think Watson's right -- while we may feel closer to the president these days because it's easier to pay attention to one person in our media than 435, the House of Representatives is still the people's branch. Should Pelosi set up a more participatory website allowing for more two-way communication, the development of social networks, and other innovative approaches, it allows an even larger number of Americans to get involved and take ownership of the legislative process. Perhaps congressional approval ratings would jump too.

The other reason I'd like to see this happen is the Obama versus party factor. As we move forward, I'd like to keep young people interested in the Democratic Party. Yes, we're about to have a president who is a technological rockstar, placing high priority on technological development and using the internet to improve transparency. And Barack Obama does happen to be a Democrat. But like we've been arguing on this site, it's not just about Obama; it's about building a party that appeals to as many youth as possible. We should be spreading the message that it's not just Obama that's interested in innovative change; it's the Democratic Party. Developing a website that is devoted to legislative change is a great starting point.

Some reading material when you have time to take a break from the craziness:

• Music for Democracy has launched its "Be the Change" project:
  

  Hip-hop stars Chingy, Q and MC Lyte have joined forces with two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Graham Nash in an innovative get-out-the-vote effort that aims to mobilize young voters for election 2008 by leveraging the power of social networks. On November 4, music fans who sign up for "Be the Change" will receive an automated call from the musician of their choice to remind them to go to the polls. A selected number of voters will receive calls from the musicians themselves.

• A recap of why Election 2008 deserves the "historic" label, especially given the generational tensions.
• A commentary on why youth will show up at the polls this year.
• Attention political junkies: Google has created an elections map complete with results since 1980 for each state.
  
• Andy Kroll writes a couple (#1 and #2) posts on pushback on the Hip Hop Republicans and what they're doing to change the culture and approach the contemporary GOP has taken over the last decade or two.
• Want to watch the election results with some fellow liberals? Living Liberally lets you know where you can go.
• 35,000 Colorado mail-in votes from newly-registered voters could be nullified, thanks to confusion over the need to include an ID.
• Obama's not the only politician popular among young voters.
• A public-private partnership to fix our ever-mounting problems. A Green New Deal. Sounds pretty good, huh? Read more.
• Anna Quindlen at Newsweek has her own commentary on the potential of Millennial voters on Election Day

The Pew Research Center released a package of valuable information yesterday showing gains in identification with the Democratic Party among all voters. What was even more interesting was the percentage of young voters identifying with Democrats -- a dramatic shift compared to other age groups.

In Pew surveys conducted since August of this year, 51% of all voters say they think of themselves as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, up five points from 46% during the same period in 2004. Meanwhile, the number identifying with or leaning toward the Republican Party has fallen from 45% to 41%. In this cycle, the Democratic Party enjoys a 10-point advantage in party identification, compared with a one-point edge in the fall of 2004.

The greatest gains for the Democratic Party have come among younger voters. The percentage of voters ages 18 to 29 identifying with the Democratic Party has increased from 48% in the fall of 2004 to 61% currently. Democrats now outnumber Republicans by a margin of nearly two-to-one (61% to 32%) in this age group, up from only a seven-point advantage in 2004.

This two-to-one advantage looks suspiciously like Obama's lead against McCain in recent polling done with this age group. Of course one might be tempted to say that this is because of Obama's popularity with Millennials, but we know better. Millennials have always preferred the Democratic Party. If Hillary Clinton was running, she would be enjoying a somewhat similar margin against McCain.

Another piece of information that intrigued me in this report was the difference in young, white voter identification with the parties between 2004 and 2008. In 2004, Republicans held an approximate ten point lead among white 18-29 year olds; in 2008 that has reversed, with Democrats attracting more white Millennials by a 51-41 margin.

This makes me hopeful that this year legitimately marks the end of campaigns run on cultural and racial division. When white youth are willing to support a party with a bi-racial presidential candidate, you can be sure that a politics based on division and distraction from substantive issues isn't going to work. With this age group's level of engagement and monstrous presence in the system over the next cycle, I think it's fair to be pretty optimistic about the direction our dialogue will take.

Possibly the most encouraging part of this report can be seen in this image below.

This is a validation of generational politics and the Democratic majority coming back, as Millennials begin to replace GIs. These four years have introduced a significant number of Millennial Democrats into the system who, while possessing the tendency to collaborate to get things done, are highly partisan, even more so than Boomers. Between the three spikes for Democrats (Millennials, Boomers, and GIs) are the smaller Generation X and Silent Generation, who tend to be more conservative (even though they're more conservative compared to the Millennials and Boomers, it should be noted that the Gen Xers in particular have also shifted blue).

2008 definitely looks good. But with this data, I'm beginning to think that 2012 could look even better.

Some reading to go with your football, service-style.

• The Washington Post's piece on Millennial college grads choosing underpaid "vocations of service" as opposed to lucrative jobs.
• CauseWired -- a book by Tom Watson that examines the exploding "culture of giving" on the web -- is set to be released on November 10th. A preview of the foreword can be read here.
• A letter to the editor of the Jackson County Chronicle (WI) from a high school history and politics teacher explains why community support for civics education is so important. Good stuff.
• Like the idea of linking community service and politics in higher education? Check this out.
• Yesterday I wrote about the steps Florida is taking to reinstall civics education into its state education system. Here's a local newspaper article out of Kingston, NY with more examples of fusion between a multidisciplinary curriculum and politics/civics.
• More youth involvement in campaigns means more enthusiasm.
• More "youth vote" coverage -- this from the AP.
• Generational split in the Vietnamese-American vote; older Vietnamese-Americans staying faithful to GOP, but Millennials flocking to the Democratic Party.
• The Wall Street Journal covers the youth vote again and is not too bad. The last quote does show how out-of-touch Republicans are, though.

A story I found published on a Philly Fox TV station's website irritated me for two reasons. The first involved lazy journalism. The second involved Howard Dean.

Leave it to a Fox News outlet to misrepresent (or leave out) facts about the youth vote. Not very surprising.

However, it is important. And it's something, as Mike regularly reminds us, that we need to be on top of from now through Election Day and its aftermath.

So, let's practice:

The enthusiasm of these young people seems so genuine- so real. But will it translate into a trip to the polls come November. There's reason for doubt.

In the 2000 presidential election, just 32% of eligible 18-to-24 year olds voted-- compared to better than fifty percent turnout for all eligible Americans.

Four years later, the youth vote was way up- to 42% but still well below the overall turnout of 55%.

I don't see a line anywhere that discusses the obstacles young people face in registering to vote and actually pulling the lever.

I also don't see any acknowledgement of a positive trend that extends past 2004. 2006 and the 2008 primaries come to mind.

And furthermore, we should not be holding youth accountable for other people outside the youth demographic deciding they want to participate in elections.

Turnout vs. Share: There's a sub-theme to be aware of here as well. There are two ways of measuring how a demographic performs during an election. These are turnout and share of the electorate, and the media has a hard time distinguishing between the two. Turnout means the hard number of people participating. In the IADP data above, 4,836 18-24 year olds caucused. That's the hard turnout number for that age demographic. You'll also notice that the data states that 18-24 year olds made up 3.9% of caucus goers in 2004. That's the share of the electorate for that age demographic. These two numbers can present very different pictures of demographic performance. The 2004 general election provides us with an excellent example.

In 2000, 18-29 year olds made up 17% of the electorate. That was their share of the electorate. In 2004, 18-29 year olds once again comprised 17% of the electorate. The "logical" conclusion is that the youth vote did not increase, and that was what the media reported on November 5th, 2004. Of course, this was wrong. If one examined the actual turnout numbers, it quickly became apparent that there was a huge increase in youth participation. In fact, 4.3 million more 18-29 year olds turned out in 2004 than did in 2000. That increase didn't appear in the share of the electorate data because turnout increased among all age demographics. In order to get a sense of what happened with young voters this year, we'll need to examine not only their share of the electorate, but also the hard turnout numbers. The media missed this in 2004, and the campaigns and youth advocates will all be checking this data to make sure that the campaigns and press don't make the same mistakes twice.

Yes, the article is the product of some local journalist who needed to meet a deadline and probably didn't have time to dig deeper. But that's where we need to come into play.

Let's turn to Howard Dean's comments about the importance of the youth vote.

"We need real change in this country, and young people aren't afraid of change," said Dean.

He urged this college crowd to get involved-- knock on doors, make phone calls and- most important of all- get out and vote.

"You are a great generation," Dean told the crowd, "It is your time. Don't blow it."

What a pep talk. I always love going into a big moment being reminded not to fail as if there's a decent chance that I very well could.

I think the reason this frustrates me so much is that Governor Dean, while having an improved track record with youth outreach compared to previous party leaders, didn't exactly embrace young Democrats when it came time to back up the rhetoric with actions during the convention. As Mike wrote in his posts from Denver a few weeks ago, there were a few younger speakers, but none that were placed into any national spotlight. The charter continues to refuse the youth caucus the same access at the convention that other caucuses within the party enjoy.

So the warning against "blow[ing] it" is not only ineffective; it's ironic. We're being told not to screw up when we haven't been given the injection of confidence to excel. We don't need reminders about how important this race is for young people. We need the party to show us they understand how important it is for young people.

Ari Melber wrote a thoughtful piece in the Washington Independent in part responding to my blog post recapping the Democratic Convention. Ari had a valid critique of my final thoughts on the lack of youth at the podium addressing the convention:

There was, however, at least one major youth speaker on Thursday night at the stadium. Ray Rivera, 29, a Colorado state director for the Obama campaign, addressed the 80,000 person crowd — twice. He was promoting, naturally, a text message organizing program, which recruited 30,000 new numbers that night alone. There was a big map and everything. I followed up with Connery, but he was not impressed. He emailed from the Republican National Convention:

"I don’t count Ray Rivera’s time on the stage. He may be young, but his purpose on stage was not to represent youth at the convention, it was to list build for the campaign. He was not there as an advocate for young people on the many pressing issues we face, and even if he were, one slot in four nights would still be skimpy representation considering what young people have done for Democratic candidates since 2006."

So there. It doesn’t count and even if it did it’s not enough. But that vision is a bit too cramped.

It is good that Obama entrusted his operation in a key state like Colorado to a young operative; just as it was good for Obama to put so much faith in young web organizers who upended U.S. politics with their online strategy, social networking and web fund-raising. Joe Rospars, Sam Graham-Felsen and Chris Hughes, for example, are all 27 or younger.

In many ways, empowering young people without putting them in youth constituency silos is better than just checking the youth box with some official speaker. Rivera had a huge — probably nerve-racking — role on the Big Night to actually do something in his official role, albeit related to the youth vote, rather than just giving a quick talk about how Barack inspires students.

I actually agree with Ari that it is amazing - and more important in the long run - that young people like Rivera are given prominent campaign positions instead of "siloed" away in a constituency group. My fight wasn't with the Obama campaign, which is the example that a lot of us hold up to other campaigns in terms of breaking those silos down and including young people in a meaningful way.

My fight was with the DNC and the Convention Committee. The DNC is explicitly run as a constituency organization. You have multiple caucuses - AAPI, Black, Women, LGBT, Youth, etc. all fighting for attention - and resources - from the party. In fact, there are rules within the DNC Charter that require the DNC to provide certain levels of access (as delegates) to the convention to most of these groups. Those rules were very recently expanded to include LGBTQ, but young people were explicitly left out and the DNC opted instead to issue non-binding "recommendations" on youth participation.

YDA actually fought with the party over this in 2005/2006, and are planning on doing so again in the next few years. This is why young people were 16% of convention participants instead of the 19% that equals their share of the Democratic Electorate. It wasn't that there wasn't enough interest among young people to fill the delegate slots, it was that older party officials with more connections crowded them out.

Those affirmative action rules don't apply to speaking slots at the podium, and access to the podium is not an area in which young people can just "crash the gates." They need to be explicitly granted access. My point was that when given the option of featuring young speakers or not, of granting that level of access or not, the DNCC chose not to do so. It's not as if young people don't have important issues that are age specific that should be provided equal time at the convention. Seven speakers came out on Thursday evening to specifically address economic concerns and problems that they face:

American Voices Program

• Roy Gross – Michigan Teamster car transport driver affected by decline in car manufacturing
• Monica Early – New to campaigning, this Akron mother & grandmother is an Obama volunteer
• Janet Lynn Monacco – Struggling small business owner from
• Melbourne, FL with health issues
• Teresa Asenap – Albuquerque, New Mexico public school worker concerned about economy
• Pamela Cash-Roper – Unemployed nurse and lifelong Republican from North Carolina
• Barney Smith – Marion, Indiana plant worker - lost job of 30 yrs when plant moved to China

Is it really too much to ask that one of these speakers be a young person struggling with student debt or lack of health care? Or a non-college youth struggling to raise a family in the Bush economy?

Nevertheless, Ari is right that my critique is somewhat parochial when viewed in the context of how Obama is changing this dynamic. It is more important that young people are put in positions of power within campaigns and the Party structure without the need to section them off in a "youth silo." And I hold out hope that Obama, riding a wave of youth support, and a staff that does in fact have many young people in key positions, will make that a reality throughout all levels of the party.

But it's equally important to note that Obama is still the exception here, not the rule, and my purpose was to point to the tension that still exists within the party when it comes to giving young people a seat at the table. The convention speaking schedule was a visible symbol of that shortage of access young people still have within the party despite all of Obama's changes.

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.