Denver

It's come to my attention that at times when I was not physically at the convention, young people actually did speak at the podium. Specifically:

• Amanda Kubik, a 27 year old delegate spoke at 7pm Eastern time on Monday while surrounded by young delegates.
• Katherine Marcano, a 23-year-old supporter of Barack Obama from IA spoke about health care at 8pm Eastern on Tuesday.

I watched on TV on Monday and didn't see Kubik, and I was on a security line on Tuesday when Marcano spoke. My piece was wrong and I should have double checked the schedule. Apologies to all.

I will still stick by the fact that I'm personally disappointed that a young person didn't have a more high-profile speaking slot. 8pm and 7pm Eastern are 6 and 5pm in Denver with the time change. At those times most people were just starting to head over to the Pepsi Center, which tended to fill up around 7pm local time. In comparison, the head of the College Republicans is slated to address the RNC not long before John McCain takes the stage (or so they tell us, the schedule is in pretty heavy flux here in St. Paul).

Nevertheless, it was incorrect for me to say that no young people were at the podium during the convention and I regret the hyperbole. Especially in so far as it detracted from my main argument - that youth still do not have full representation within the DNC.

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.

I was pretty much off the grid last week in Denver during the convention, and since Sarah, Mike, and others have authored some excellent coverage on the convention, I am going to stick to this single post with an overview of my thoughts and experiences.

CNN iReport of Isaac Robinson

Outside of Forest Room 5 on the Saturday before convention Jose Williams AKA Mr. Man, a CNN iReporter, interview YDA Labor Caucus Chair and Political Director for the Michigan Teamsters Isaac Robinson. I was enlisted to actually film the interview, which is now available online.

Crystal Strait and Francisco Domenech Re-elected

At the YDA National Committee meeting, which actually ran ahead of schedule, DNC Woman Crystal Strait of CA and DNC Man Francisco Domenech of PR were re-elected unanimously.

Interview with Moby

At the DoSomething/Flashbooth party at Jet I had the chance to ask Moby a couple of questions about the election. Unfortunately, I was without video camera so I don't have live footage. The interview went something like this:

Bondelli: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions Moby.

Moby: No problem.

Bondelli: What are your thoughts on the involvement of youth in this election?

Moby: It is amazing and inspiring.

Bondelli: What role do you think musicians can play in engaging voters?

Moby: Well I think that depends on the genre of music and their audience. Different things will work better for certain musicians. It is up to the artist to find out what works with their audience.

Bondelli: Thank you for your time.

I Get Quoted in the NY Times

Shortly after my interview with Moby I was approached by Julie Bosman, style reporter for the New York Times, for an interview. I ended up being quoted in an article about Denver's Convention night life being lackluster. Here is my quote:

“The one thing that Democrats have learned is that if anyone can lose an election, it’s the Democrats,” said Kevin Bondelli, the owner of a design and consulting firm in Arizona. “In the last eight years, we’ve become a lot more respectful of the Republican political machine.”

Youth Orgs and Great Marketing

Mike has a lot of full posts about the marketing campaigns done by Rock the Vote and Trick or Vote, but I just wanted to add my thoughts in general. I was really impressed with how these organizations took advantage of the Convention and used it to make Democrats aware of both young voters and their organizations.

Trick or Vote, in my opinion, did the best job of this. Throughout the week people in Halloween costumes were attending events, hanging around the convention center, and talking to attendees all over the place. The Trick or Vote party did exactly what organization parties should do: combine a bunch of people meeting and drinking with an actually sell of your organization. Once they showed their excellent videos at the party, everybody was sold.

Youth Seen but Not Heard

Mike wrote an excellent piece about this, so once again I will offer my additional thoughts.

This is the impression I get from older establishment Democrats within the party. They think it is great that young people are showing up to the polls in huge numbers for Democrats. They like to see the young energetic faces at their events. They do not want to have to share power, influence, access, or even speaking time with them.

This is going to continue unless something is done about it. The youth of this party have reinvigorated it, and there should be some reflection of that within the actual party. I am going to address what I think needs to be done in an upcoming post.

I've posted a ton of stuff about Trick or Vote and their viral street efforts during the DNC in Denver, but they were not the only youth organization with a clever marketing scheme to spread the word about their activities at the convention. Rock the Vote also had an innovative viral campaign on the streets of downtown Denver this week and I think they deserve a shoutout.

On Monday, the first day of the convention, I probably met at least two or three people on the street wearing black T-shirts with the number 81.6% written across the front in white, handing out identical black and white post cards. It definitely piqued my curiosity, even if I didn't stop (I'm super bad about stopping for canvassers). On Tuesday, I encountered them again with the number 13.3 emblazoned on their black T-shirts. The shirts and handouts were eye-catching, and on both days people were definitely stopping to talk to the volunteers about these mysterious numbers.

I think it was later that day that Bondelli explained to me the dynamics of the campaign. Each number represented a statistic about young voters. The campaign had a new number each day, culminating on Thursday, when the number was election day:

• Monday - 81.6%: the percentage of registered young voters who turned out in 2004.
• Tuesday - 13.3: the millions of young Americans without health insurance.
• Wednesday - 1,049,398: the number of 17-29 year olds who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• Thursday - 11.04.08: the day that young voters will decide their future

This is very reminiscent of the "November 2nd" campaign in 2004 in which (supposedly millions) of black T-shirts with the day of the 2004 election printed on them were created to increase visibility around the election, especially among young people.

This whole campaign seemed to attract a lot of attention in Denver. I don't know if Rock the Vote plans on rolling out a similar nation-wide campaign in the fall, but I could see it being an effective way to message about the election and youth participation during the final three or four weeks before the election. Maybe 1 T-shirt/message per week used by all the volunteers for the non-partisan (or even partisan, if they wanted) campaigns?

I know we've posted a ton of stuff about Trick or Vote this week, but thought I'd share this article I wrote for AlterNet. - Mike

What is the one day of the year that you expect a stranger to knock on your door? Halloween. And what's comes less than a week after Halloween? Election Day. What does that make Halloween? If you are a member of the Bus Federation or one of its partner organizations, it makes Halloween the best day of the year to launch a massive door-to-door canvass to Get Out the Vote (GOTV).

That's the pitch that Jefferson Smith, one of the founders of the Oregon Bus Project, gave to a group of young activists, insiders and media in Denver today at their Trick or Vote Launch Party.

Trick or Vote is exactly what it sounds like. Each year on Halloween, members of the Bus Federation (the Orgeon Bus Project, New Era Colorado, Forward Montana, New Mexico Youth Organized, and the Washington Bus) don their costumes to canvass neighborhoods to turnout the vote – especially the youth vote - in their communities. The program began with the Oregon Bus Project in 2004. That Halloween, hundreds of young Oregonians turned out to canvass, making it one of the largest door to door canvasses in the state history. Not only did the unprecedented effort get out the vote, it helped flip a number of state legislative races.

But don't just call it a canvass in drag. Organizations involved in the Bus Federation look at Trick or Vote as more than a way to get people to the polls, it's also a smart way to engage young people who want to make a difference, and care deeply about the issues, but may be turned away by a traditional canvass or a dreary job phonebanking. Programs like Trick or Vote function as a gateway drug to encourage deeper and deeper political action from their members.

This year Trick or Vote will go national, with at least nine organizations participating in 21 cities. With such a big push on the horizon, in what may be one of the most significant elections of our lifetime, the members of the Bus Federation are determined to sell their innovative program to the insiders and activists flooding Denver for the Democratic National Convention. It's not possible to walk past the Colorado Convention Center without being accosted by zombies, or mummies espousing the virtues of costumed canvassing. Even CBS anchor Katie Couric sported a Trick or Vote Button on TV at one point this week.

At the Trick or Vote party in downtown Denver, Bus Federation staffers walked around sporting cat ears and fangs, and Jessica and Roger Rabbit were in the audience to hear speakers like progressive icon Jim Hightower heap praise on the local grassroots organizing of the Bus Federation.

Guests were also given a look at a series of viral videos meant to spread the word about Trick or Vote:

So far young voters have turned our in record numbers and overwhelming chosen to lend their support to Barack Obama and other Democratic Candidates. If this trend continues in November, it might be due in no small part to the work or groups like the Bus Federation and innovative programs like Trick or Vote.

I have three awesome videos of about youth participation at the convention from Howard Dean, Alexandra Acker of YDA, and another women whose name I missed talking about the delegate count. Unfortunatey, my Flip camera USB connection seems to be busted and I can't upload them. So no pretty movies, just text.

Acker, the Executive Director of the Young Democrats, has been to three conventions. She's been everything from a volunteer to a super delegate back before anyone even cared about super delegates. She noted that youth participation in general is way up this year. As I've noted before, young people are 16% of all convention participants and there are 631 actual youth delegates.

Acker noted, however, that there are places where youth participation continues to lag. Young delegates are still not equal to young voter's share of the Democratic electorate (technically all demographics are supposed to be represented in proportion to their share of the electorate). And thus far, there have been no young speakers on the podium during the convention. Many of us expected to see a passing of the torch as Chelsea Clinton introduced her mother, and Acker expressed disappointment that Chelsea's role was reduced to narrating a video about her mother's life.

At the final DNC Youth Council meeting today - which was probably the highest attendance I've yet seen at a Youth Council Event, Howard Dean told all the young participants that they need to vote early, get their friends to vote, and get their parents to vote, but voting is not enough. Young people need move beyond voting and start running for office. This echoed a speech Dean delivered at Netroots Nation earlier in the summer.

In terms of non-delegate youth faces within the hall, the DNC Youth Council handed out a number of passes (not sure how many yet) to Invesco Field, and College Democrats were also able to get may of their members credentials to see Obama's acceptance speech. This seems to be the exception of the week, however, not the rule. Credentials to the Pepsi Center for young people were few and far between, and word is that the College Democrats weren't able to offer any credentials at all on Mon - Wed. This seems like a big oversight on the part of the DNCC.

In short: more young people than ever are participating as delegates this year, but young faces in the rest of the hall are fewer and far between for any young Democratic activists lacking insider connections. And for a political party that is riding a new wave of support among young voters, the lack of young faces addressing the convention is very disappointing.

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.

Another day filled with more events than anyone could possibly attend. Here’s a rundown of what happened on my end during the first part of the day.

After some abortive attempts at blogging and another trek to the no-man’s land where they hide the credentials, the first event of the day was the DNC Youth Council’s panel on youth organizing.

I think the event went fairly well, though it could have been better. We smartly skipped over presentations and went straight to Q&A. There was more than the normal share of crazy questioners who go to the mic more to rant than to ask a question, though to be fair, a young Hillary delegate did stand up and make a great call for unity - among young Democrats and the delegates in general. Other questions ranged from how best to learn the ropes of the inside rules and protocols that makes local party politics function, to best practices for getting young Latinos to the polls.

Thomas Bates of Democrats Work had a brilliant retort to the question about inside politics, that essentially boils down to: start your own organization, rally your friends, and change the way the inside politics works in your neighborhood. Considering the successes of Democrats Work these past few years, and my own experiences in politics, which essentially consists of telling people they were wrong until people paid attention and changed the way they operated, I think he’s got a pretty solid leg to stand on.

With regard to the format, though, it seems like the DNC Youth Council should be able to get more time for events and smaller panels that are more focused. There were ten of us on the panel and it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Any combination of 4 of us probably could have fielded all the questions that came our way. Pretty much the only thing I managed to say was a brief call for people to check out MoveOn's Vote Poke tool and a call to make Election Day registration a future project for youth orgs after November. I think more focused, smaller panels might be a more productive route in the future, though I understand that it gets harder to marshal press to multiple events during what is already a busy week.

I was a little disappointed to see that more College Democrats didn’t attend the panel. To be sure, it looked like CDA composed a decent portion of the audience (press and young delegates made up the rest), but considering that CDA’s national convention is happening concurrent to the DNCC, I would have hoped for a larger audience from the college crowd who are a big part of the future of youth organizing. I’m not sure what the story is there.

Kevin and I were discussing and it seemed like the second panel of the day, featuring young candidates and elected officials like Tim Ryan, Scott Kleeb and Congressman Greg Meeks seemed much more focused, and offered a good accounting of what it takes to run for office. The questions were also much more focused, and I have no doubt that helped as well.

Later in the day there was a panel on Hip Hop Politics, which I wanted to attend - especially in light of my recent post, which is getting some positive and negative reactions offline - but blogging duty called and I had to spend a few hours hunkered down at the Big Tent.

That turned out to be a pretty good move, as I got interviewed by the Chicago Sun Times about blogging. That was a little weird. I’m used to talking to media about young voters, not blogging. It was an adjustment and my talking points weren’t quite as polished. Hopefully it came out OK. By happenstance, I was interviewed at the same time as Georgia10 from Daily Kos, who stepped in with great answers when I got stumped. I also got shot for B-roll by ABC News. I guess they wanted to see “blogging” in action. Maybe you’ll see my mug or the Future Majority logo on the TeeVee. Let me know if you do. And if anyone attended the Hip Hop panel and wants to blog about it, shoot me an email.

Totally bumped by Sarah Burris (Ian is such a rockstar!)

The first three days at the College Democrats of America convention in Denver this weekend were enjoyable and informative, but also a clear reminder of CDA's shortcomings. Many of the trainings they offered were excellent, but the question then becomes to what degree will students actually use these skills as they head back to campus this fall? Is CDA ready to become an organization focused on effecting real change or is it still dominated by students who would rather pad their resumes than roll up their sleeves and engage in serious campaigning?

After talking with convention delegates who have been long time CDA members at the chapter and state level, I heard various frustrations that many students have with the organization - frustrations which rarely rise to the surface to be discussed by CDA leadership.

The overriding grievance was that CDA remains a mostly marginalized and underfunded part of the Democratic party, due to the fact that it is still part of the DNC. Leaders of state federations also complained that the national CDA leadership provides no money and very few resources to the states. States would like financial support, speakers for events, support for field programs, increased coordination with boarding states, and other resources that the national leadership has not provided. Another disappointment was the fact that most national CDA leadership positions were uncontested during the elections. Even elections that were contested were largely determined ahead of time by candidates who had already lined up the right key endorsements.

On Saturday, the elections for CDA President and Vice President took place. Katie Naranjo and Alec Schierenbeck ran unopposed to succeed Lauren Wolf and Awais Khaleel for the top two national posts. Alec's speech was well received, but focused entirely on national issues important to all Democrats and made no mention of any plans of his for CDA. Katie's speech was more substantive and promised a series of encouraging improvements. She told delegates "we're here to make a change," and that vowed to make students "a valued constituency." We'll have to wait and see whether or not these pledges for action materialize in the coming years.

Sunday ended on a high note with an incredible speech by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who told the story of how he became Mayor and tied it into a broader vision. Booker spoke against excessive individualism and described unity and community as core American values. Afterwards he received a standing ovation from the entire CDA convention. Sam Hodge, CDA Political Affairs Director, came on stage and called it the best political speech he had heard.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to write about the first day at the convention. The convention is so big that it's pretty much impossible to encapsulate. The actual convention is just the most visible part of what is going on. Even before the convention gavels in at 3pm each day, there are dozens of panels, networking events, and protests. While the convention conducts its business on national television, there are watch parties all over the city - for youth, bloggers, activists, anyone not able to snag a credential into the Pepsi Center that night. Long after the convention ends each night there are dozens of parties as organizations try to build their brand name, budding politicos try to climb up the next rung in the political ladder, and insiders hold private meetings with senators, major donors and political figures.

It's an incredible circus of activity created by insiders and outsiders all looking for their piece of the pie in this election cycle - from the crazy activist hawking buttons on the street to the major elected officials and delegates in on the floor. So it's hard to give show anything more than the tiniest slices of what is going on. That said, here's my .02 on what I experienced on the first day and what it's like covering the DNCC.

Credentials
You can't do anything or get anywhere without a credential at the convention. The first thing every morning is getting your credentials for the day, which are usually located in far-flung locations not near mass transportation. Walking is your friend and you do a lot of it in order to collect your credentials.

Youth Council Press Conference
The press avail arranged by the youth council seemed to go quite well. The room was packed with young delegates, activists and Press alike. About 15 groups gave an overview of their work in 2 minute shorts, and I hear that some decent press hits are starting to come out of it. Will.i.am showed up at the end to do his own briefing on the importance of the youth vote. Sarah will have video of this later today I think, and I'm working with Remix America on getting some footage as well - hopefully individual 2 minute clips of everyone's presentations for people to embed on their websites and pass around.

Probably my favorite speech during the press avail came from Crystal Strait of YDA. Crystal used her two minutes not to pump up YDA (though she could have), but rather to highlight that even though youth representation at this convention is higher than ever - 16% of all participants - it is still not on par with young voter's share of the Democratic electorate. Young voters could be 20 - 25% of the electorate in 2008. In 2004 we were 19% of all voting Democrats. It's important to continue to highlight that disparity and push the DNC to continue down the path of greater inclusion and support for youth engagement within the party structure.

Starz Center/Sea Change Forum
Progressive Strategies and a few other organizations have set up a private mini conference within the confines of the Pepsi Center perimeter set by the Secret Service. You can only get in if you are a credentialed delegate or have an all access pass to the Center. I was able to snag one of those all access passes by agreeing to participate in a panel on Wednesday about the youth vote.

Yesterday I got the chance to go see Drew Westen present on his book, The Political Brain. If you haven't read it, the book is about the role of emotion in political messaging and offers practical advice on how to properly frame political messages to invoke the emotions on which most people base their vote. Westen's presentation created a compelling argument that Democrats have lost ground for 30 years because Republicans successfully branded the words "Liberal" and "Democrat" with negative emotional meanings. In response, Democrats offered not appeals to emotion, but to logic and facts, acronyms and policy wonkery. That is, when we respond at all.

I spent a few years working with an organization that did framing and message research. One of the biggest problems is that Lakoff and most people who work on framing tend to stay in an uber-theoretical framework, offering little in the way of practical messages responding to the current news cycle, so Westen's presentation was a refreshing change.

On a personal, star-sighting note, Morgan Spurlock sat behind me during the presentation. The Sea Change forum has that kinda feel to it - like famous people are waiting around the corner.

Big Tent
The Big Tent is the official blogger headquarters of the convention, and like the Sea Change Forum it is really it's own mini-conference happening at the same time as the convention. As I noted in my post yesterday, this is the place to meet all the bloggers and activists, check out panels on issues like Green Jobs and the war, watch the convention via live stream and recharge your all important laptop batteries.

There are hundreds of bloggers here and we are light years away from 2004, when only a few bloggers were even credentialed for the convention. I wouldn't even be surprised if the vast majority of people sitting in the room with me as I type this weren't even blogging in 2004. The blogosphere has grown up in the last four years and the Big Tent is one of the major hubs of activity here in Denver. Media are here interviewing bloggers, and elected officials have stopped by to acknowledge the contributions that bloggers are making to the party every day.

After Parties
I attended two after parties, one by Rock the Vote, and another by HeadCount. HeadCount's party was at the Ogden, an independent venue here in Denver and was headlined by Robert Randolph and the family band (blues and gospel based pedal steel jam rock). I was super impressed with the event. Despite being a few miles away from the main hub of events, the place was packed with local young people, delegates and VIPs alike. Everyone seemed genuinely into the scene and it had a real authentic, community vibe to it. (Washington Post's The Sleuth agrees with our analysis.)

Talking to Andy Bernstein, the ED of HeadCount, he said the organization is on track to register 50,000 voters this summer on concert tours and at summer festivals.

Across town, back by the convention center, Rock the Vote's party featured N.E.R.D and Fallout Boy. This event was a little weirder. The event was held at the Ellie Hawkins Opera House. It had a schizophrenic vibe to it. In the halls of the Opera House, something of a star-fucker scene was in full force, while inside the auditorium, a very young crowd rocked out to the music. Cringe-worthy moment of the night: when Congressman Meeks came on to talk and asked everyone to get ready for "the Fallout Boys."

Despite a much larger venue, I'd estimate that the Rock the Vote show had an only slightly larger crowd than the Head Count show. The event was also slated to feature the winner of Rock the Vote's DemRockracy contest, but I got there later in the evening after N.E.R.D played and missed the opening act.

Things I missed
I skipped out on the actual convention to get some much needed rest before the after parties. I did manage to get to the Big Tent in time to see Michelle Obama's speech but missed out on the rest. Tonight I will be in the Pepsi Center for the Clinton extravaganza. More on that tomorrow.

The Harvard Institute of Politics released new survey numbers in a press conference held at the same time as that by the Youth Council. I'll have more on those survey results later today.

Here are some photos from Day 1: