DNC Youth Council

Update: A correction has been issued for this piece. Two young people did address the convention on Monday and Tuesday. Read the full correction here.
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My final write-up on the DNC.

On Thursday, Senator Obama finished the long primary process and accepted his party’s nomination in front of 75,000 supporters. In no small part, Senator Obama stood on the podium at Invesco field thanks to the hard work, and votes, of millions of young voters, many of who cast their first ballot in support of his campaign.

Turnout among young voters in the Democratic primary was double the level recorded in 2004, and young voters broke heavily in favor of Senator Obama. In the Iowa caucuses, young voters performed on par with the "reliable" senior vote, and were widely credited with providing Senator Obama’s margin of victory.

That trend continued at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, in which young people played a larger-than-usual, though still not proportional, part in the proceedings. Young people made up a record 16% of all official participants in Denver, including 631 delegates. This represented a huge increase over 2000 and 2004, when young people made up 9 and 11% of convention participants, respectively.

As Crystal Strait, political director of the California Democratic Party and active Young Democrat noted during a press conference by the DNC Youth Council, young people were still not represented in the convention at the levels in which they participate in Democratic politics. Young people made up 19% of the Democratic electorate in 20004, and under the DNC Charter, should also make up 19% of the delegates at the Democratic Convention, 3% higher than the record levels found in Denver.

Off the convention floor, though, young faces could be found in abundance. The College Democrats of America held their own national convention in Denver, concurrent with the DNC. The group flooded the city with hundreds of student activists who came for trainings, speeches from top DNC officials, and perhaps a chance to view Senator Obama’s acceptance speech live.

During the day, panels coordinated by the DNC Youth Council – a board consisting of leaders from College Democrats, Young Democrats, Democrats Work, and Future Majority (myself and coblogger Kevin Bondelli are both members), as well as all members of the DNC under age 36 – provided access to elected officials and party leaders like Howard Dean and Scott Kleeb, as well as advice on best practices for organizing young voters or running for office.

Non-partisan youth organizations, such as the Bus Federation and Rock the Vote, were also in attendance, throwing parties at night and flooding the street with viral campaigns during the day. It was hard to walk down the street without noticing Bus Federation volunteers dressed as vampires, angels, or devils to raise awareness about Trick or Vote, their national Halloween GOTV canvass. Often not more than a few yards away, Rock the Vote street team members handed out cryptic black postcards with white numbering. The numbers changed each day, and represented important statistics on young voters.

Despite this unprecedented youth involvement at the convention, young people were more likely to be seen than heard by the delegates and party officials in Denver.

Though they are the official youth arm of the Democratic Party, the College Democrats were unable to provide the vast majority of their membership in Denver access to the first three nights of the convention. The Young Democrats and DNC Youth Council had similar problems obtaining credentials for their members early in the week, and young Democratic organizers in Denver needed to rely on their state parties or personal connections to obtain credentials to the Pepsi Center. The situation was much improved for Thursday night's events at Invesco Field, for which party youth organizations were mostly able to provide access to their members.

Most surprisingly, the one place young voters were completely absent at the Democratic National Convention was at the podium. During my four nights at the convention I did not see one young voter or youth organizer – from CDA, YDA, SFBO or otherwise – address the convention. Young Democrats looking forward to Chelsea Clinton’s introduction of her mother as a kind of passing-the-torch to the next generation moment were disappointed when the former First Daughter’s role was reduced to narrating a video about her mother’s life.

Thursday at Invesco Field was no better. Not one young person took the stage that night – not even during a brief period in which the party introduced half a dozen “regular folks” to talk about the problems they face. It was a curious and conspicuous omission considering the economic plight of “Generation Debt.”

The closest the Party came to including young people during the night’s proceedings came during the speeches of Al Gore and Sen. Obama, both of whom acknowledged the unique role of young people in pushing for change during this election.

To the extent that this is a change election, it is also generational election. Age was the greatest predictor of how someone would cast a vote in the primary process. Unfortunately, the convention organizers chose to talk at young people this week rather reward them for their activism with a place at the podium. Young voters are pushing the Democratic Party towards victory, yet it appears that the convention organizers still adhere to the old adage: children should be seen, but not heard.

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.

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:

The DNC Youth Council has put together a guide to all the youth-focused events (and more) in Denver. I've attached it as a file, or you can download it directly here (pdf).

Lots of good stuff here. Spread widely to folks who will be in Denver. Hope to see you there.

Update: So here's a question. I wonder what youth representation will be at the RNC?
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The DNC Youth Council just put out a press release announcing that young people will make up 16% of convention participants in Denver:

Washington, DC – Growing on the strong performance of young voters during the primaries, young people are set to make up just over 16% of all convention delegates, alternates, standing committee members and pages, at the end of the month in Denver, beating all previous records.

Based on information from the Office of the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, there are scheduled to be 631 delegates aged 36 and under helping to select the Democratic Party presidential nominee. This record performance tops the 11% of youth delegates in 2004 and the 9% in 2000.

Bear in mind that youth is being defined here as 18 - 36, not the usual 18 - 30 we talk about. The DNC (and YDA) both use that metric as the definition of "youth" for the purposes of internal matters.

Technically, the DNC delegations are supposed to represent youth at levels equal to their share of the Democratic electorate in the previous cycle. According to YDA (pdf), who fought the DNC over affirmative action goals to assure proper representation for youth at the convention, that means that youth should make up 19% of convention participants. So the number should be higher, and we still have a ways to go to achieve full representation.

Nevertheless this is a huge improvement. A big congratulations to everyone who worked to get as many young people as possible involved in the convention - as a delegate or otherwise. The full press release is after the jump.

Hey everyone. The DNC Youth Council is looking to fill two vacant regional slots - one for the West and one for the MidWest. Details below or on their Facebook page:

The DNC Youth Council has announced a boatload of new delegate trainings. If you are interested in being a delegate to the convention and live in one of these states, be sure to join us.

One of the goals of the DNC's Youth Council is to increase the number of young delegates (those under 36) to the Democratic National Convention. To do this, we are setting up short conference call trainings in each state for young people to learn about the process and deadlines. We are happy to announce our next set of calls. All young people interested in becoming a delegate to the National Convention are invited and encouraged to participate in the calls.

The upcoming calls are:

Texas - Monday, April 28 at 7pm EST
Phone: 605-475-6300
Code: 85383

Virginia - Wednesday, April 30 at 6pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Kansas, Mississippi, and Ohio - Wednesday, April 30 at 7pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Washington - Thursday, May 1 at 2pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Maine - Monday, May 5 at 5pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Nevada - Monday, May 5 at 6pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Oregon - Tuesday, May 6 at 8pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

The DNC Youth Council has announced three more trainings for the state delegate election process. If you don't want to get cut, you might want to get on this call:

Subject: Upcoming DNC Youth Council Delegate Selection Trainings

Friends and Colleagues--

One of the goals of the DNC's Youth Council is to increase the number of young delegates (those under 36) to the Democratic National Convention. We have already held several conference call trainings on the process to be a delegate. The trainings were extremely successful and we are eager to get underway with our next round of calls.

Below one will find a listing of some of our upcoming calls. Please spread the word to as many people as possible about these. On each call we will be joined by a member of that respective state's party to go over the process to be a Congressional District, PLEO, or At-Large delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In addition to the specific training, we will be sure to provide information on how to get more involved with the State Party and other youth organizations. (If you or your organization have specific information you would like to have mentioned, please email me and let me know as soon as possible.)

The upcoming calls are:

Vermont - Thursday, April 17 at 7pm EST

Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

North Carolina - Tuesday, April 22nd at 6pm EST
Phone: 605-475-6006
Code: 792994

Texas - Monday, April 28 at 7pm EST
Phone: 605-475-6300
Code: 85383

Jason Rae, co-chair of the DNC Youth Council and the youngest Super Delegate was kind enough to let the Daily Show lampoon him earlier this week. He's a good sport about it.

The DNC Youth Council is getting ready to hold three more trainings on how to become delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August:

Last week, we held our first conference call training on the process to be a delegate from New Mexico. The training was extremely successful and we are eager to get underway with our next round of calls.

Below one will find a listing of some of our upcoming calls. Please spread the word to as many people as possible about these. On each call we will be joined by a member of that respective state's party to go over the process to be a Congressional District, PLEO, or At-Large delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In addition to the specific training, we will be sure to provide information on how to get more involved with the State Party and other youth organizations.

The upcoming calls are:
Georgia - March 31st at 5pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 678-893-3989

Utah - April 1st at 6pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817

Wisconsin - April 2nd at 7pm EST
Phone: 866-810-8093
Code: 822-976-6817