rnc08

Hold onto your hats. Every link today is pure youthy awesomeness and should be read. In no particular order, but with extra commentary:

• Conservative reporter Carl Cannon, writing at conservative outlet Reader's Digest, reports that pollsters are probably underestimating the youth vote this year.
• The LA Times reports that Obama wins the Xbox/Rock the vote primary, but wonders if young gamers will actually vote. As we know from the recent Pew study, the answer is yes.
• Our own Sarah Burris has an excellent piece over at WireTap grading the RNC and the DNC for their inclusion of youth. It's comprehensive and enlightening and unexpected to see where each convention excelled and where they inevitably fell short.
• There is a lot of chatter lately among youth organizers about finding ways to reach high school students. One answer may be Channel One, the news/advertising network played in so many homerooms across the country. The channel recently launched One Vote 2008 to cover the elections. Now if we could only get our folks in front of their cameras . . .
• Youth Vote '08 covers the launch of Generation WE, a new study on Millennials. We'll have more about this in the coming days.
• In the Washingtonian, Garrett Graff thinks that Millennials will cost McCain the election.
• Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising is now available for download.
• Rock the Vote's new poll gets some coverage from UPI and The Nation.
• In cooperation with PayPal, MySpace deploys a new system to raise money for nonprofits through its network.

Some reading to supplement your weekend down time:

• The Daily Trojan's recent piece covering each candidate's youth vote operation can be found here (and yes, the fact that they think McCain has any outreach to youth points to the accuracy of the article and the competence of those interviewed. Look at this:
  

  Ann Crigler, director of the Department of Political Science and a professor of political science at USC, agreed that youth voters are targeted because they are not yet devoted to either party.

  "The youth vote is really important because it is traditionally not aligned with a party or candidate yet, so people want to get them to participate because they haven't traditionally," Crigler said. "It is easier to attract those who aren't already committed to a party."

  I don't think that's why it's important, and I don't think that's true. A recent poll in swing state Ohio, for instance, shows that Obama is preferred over McCain by a margin of 60-33 percent.

• Florida is now requiring that all potential voters have an ID in order to vote.
• What a difference having a Democratic head of elections makes in Ohio -- Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner is attempting to prevent vote caging.
• Apparently the GOP doesn't care about copyright law when their power is threatened.
• PowerVote: getting one million green youth voters to the polls.
• The 2008 presidential campaign invades college orientations.
• An excellent piece in the Cornell Daily Sun finds that McCain is in favor of cutting and running -- from the youth vote.

Even though Trojan Condoms launched its Evolve America tour last April, the safer sex campaign still made quite an appearance at both the Democratic and Republican conventions. Calling it the "condomvention" Trojan's bus rolled into Denver, Colorado for a huge party the first night of the festivities.

With special guests including Ja Rule, Spike Lee, Alan Cumings, Josh Lucas, Tony Goldwyn, and Gloria Reuben, the party started with open bar and a little comedy.

The Evolve tour targeted delegates, sexual health advocacy groups, policymakers and the presidential candidates themselves, urging them to acknowledge safer sex issues and get them on the political and social agendas.

According to the International Business Times, the tour is designed to engage Americans directly by pledging to use a condom every time and sign a petition for change. This, they say, is in light of:

"condom advertising restrictions on network prime time television in effect, and over a billion dollars spent on abstinence-only education that does not advocate condom use..."

There are two tours continuing from the conventions. Evolve Yourself and Involve Yourself plan to crisscross the country through the final months of the Presidential campaigns.

"Trojan Evolve is a call to action," says Jim Daniels, Vice President of Marketing for Church & Dwight Co Inc. "We're quite literally going city to city asking Americans to pledge to use a condom every time, sign a petition for change and help turn the tide on the unhealthy state of sexual health in this country."

See my video on the campaign below and take the pledge at TrojanCondoms.com

Editorial rant: Why is it that we don't see Democrats hitting the GOP on how these programs didn't work and opposing them because republicans still want to do abstinence only education?? if 90% of American is for comprehensive sex education ... then why aren't we standing up and saying - so are democrats and republicans aren't. Just curious why more people aren't pushing this issue given new facts, data, the Trojan tour, and .... need I mention the VP's own little at home experiment?

Crossposted from Wiretap Magazine

Update: I just want to add that this is pretty standard for the Republicans. As Thomas Frank ably describes in his new book, Wrecking Crew, ever since the days of Abramoff and Norquist, the college Republicans have fought to defund or delegitimize organizations that they perceived as being too far to the left. And in 2004, Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RNC, engaged in a high-profile dispute with Rock the Vote. This is just another extension of those tactics and that fight.
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I've alluded a few times to a big, upcoming story on what I did at the RNC. I'd hoped to have another week or so of anonymity, but my cover is blown, and the College Republicans are attacking one of our own, so it's time to come clean.

Last week, I attended the RNC. I wasn't a credentialed blogger, as I was at the DNC, and I wasn't a protester shaking my fist at the Xcel Center. I attended the Republican National Convention on the dime of the College Republicans, who gave me free housing, free credentials for each night, and access to all their events. They didn't do this out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it because I tricked them.

In an effort to increase the number of active users on STORM, the College Republican social network, the CRNC held a contest this summer in which the top 40 recruiters on the network (the "STORM 40") would receive free housing at the Republican National Convention. Myself, with the help of a number of friends, created an account and won a spot in that top 40. It wasn't even all that hard.

Today, the beans were spilled, and the College Republicans finally figured out what went on. Now they're attacking our own Sarah Burris because an article in City Pages improperly identified her as a Rock the Vote employee who participated in this project:

“This sort of behavior from an employee of a non-partisan organization is completely unacceptable,” said Ethan Eilon, Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. “Sarah Burris’ participation in Connery’s plot is unethical at best, and is possibly illegal. The College Republicans demand that Burris be dismissed from her position, and that Rock the Vote issue a public apology for their connection to this matter.”

College Republican National Chairman Charlie Smith added: “Connery and Burris’ twisted plot of lies and subterfuge is ridiculous behavior in a free and open democracy. Their sad attempt to embarrass the College Republicans demonstrates the liberal desperation to discredit the conservative youth movement. Barack Obama’s advantage with young voters is rapidly dwindling. Several recent polls have shown Obama’s lead among young voters has dropped from 30 points to nearly single digits in only a month. Connery and Burris’ behavior shows that Democrats will clearly do anything to disguise the rapid shift of young voters towards the candidacies of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin.”

To be clear, Sarah is not an employee of Rock the Vote, she is an independent contractor. And at no time did she use Rock the Vote's time, money, or access to promote my infiltration of the RNC. Rock the Vote has zero connection to this project.

If the College Republican social network was at all robust, or if they had done even the smallest amount of vetting, this would not have been possible. It's understandable that they are upset and feel the need to push back, but their attacks against Sarah and Rock the Vote, however, are completely off base and unsubstantiated.

Since this is all finally starting to come out, I also want to be clear as to my own behavior and motives. I did not do this to "embarrass" the College Republicans. I did this in an attempt to discover what the College Republicans really think about their status in the minority position within their generation; to uncover, without PR or spin, what that means for their organizing efforts on campus; to directly compare the youth organizing at the DNC to its Republican counterpart; and to see if the College Republicans, with its $5 million budget, really is an organizing powerhouse or just a paper tiger padding the accounts of Republican consultants. In some of this, I was successful, in other areas I wasn't. I'll write more about that later.

If I wanted to embarrass the College Republicans, I had ample opportunity. There were tons of media at the convention, and my little STORM group (only 15 of who actually came to the RNC), was in the press quite a bit - from MTV to UPI. If I wanted to mess with the College Republicans or the Republican youth message, I could have easily done so.

Instead, I mostly stayed out of the media - I wasn't looking to punk anyone in that way. I didn't goad anyone while I was in St. Paul into saying things they would regret, and I tried hard to lie as little as possible. I even supplied my real name and email address when signing up for this contest. If anyone asked me whether or not I was writing an article, I would have broken cover and told the truth. At no time were such questions raised. If people assume you believe the same things they do, it's amazing how far you can get in conversations by just offering straight political analysis.

More to come.

• Hat tip to Tony Cani, the Political Director of the Young Democrats, for catching the most cynical youth story of the week. From the conservative Washington Times:
  

  Republicans can keep young voters who support Democratic nominee Barack Obama at home by giving their young relatives and friends gift cards to iTunes and Starbucks that are good only on Nov. 4, election day.

  “That’s the only way to keep them away from the polls,” said Kellyanne Conway, president of The Polling Company, during a breakfast with the delegates at their hotel near the University of Minnesota.

  Tony has the appropriate response.

• That last gem comes courtesy of a speaker addressing the Virginia delegation at the Republican National Convention. But I don't think the Virginia GOP needs any help suppressing the youth vote, they're already doing a bang-up job of that, according to this New York Times article. A local registrar near Virginia Tech is improperly and inaccurately threatening students with the loss of financial aid if they register to vote in the state.
• Meanwhile, in another swing state, the Ohio Secretary of State is actually doing her job and is taking precautions to prevent voter suppression at the polls in November.
• Everyone should read Glenn Greenwald's post about why McCain and Palin can lie with impunity on the stump.
• On September 18th, the Center for American Progress is hosting an event on Millennials and how they will reshape the electorate. RSVP here.
• AEI has their own event on Millennials as well. Let's say that their take is not so optimistic. Details and RSVP here.
• The WE Campaign, 1 Sky and Green for All are teaming up for a day of action to promote Green Jobs Now. So far there are 232 events scheduled for September 27th.
• YP4 is offering an online course (Free!) on how to fight the Religious Right. The course begins Sept. 15th.
• YP4 is also recruiting a new class of Fellows. Find out more here.
• The New York Times has an interesting piece on the state of the money-race, including an interesting bit about Obama donors collecting checks that will go to the state parties in Battlegrounds.

These are two of my new friends. Princella and Richard, who, despite their republicanism are remarkable young leaders. Wednesday, I met with many of the Young Republicans in the party who can't help but notice that the stereotypes of old, white, men are more valid than they would like.

Leaders from the popular youth blog HipHopRepublican.com sat down with me to talk about opportunities that their party could harness if they were only willing to do the kind of outreach that Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama's campaign does.

The young people all have ambitions to achieve goals or run for office, but they are fighting an uphill battle in a tough establishment world. Its the one thing that we as young democrats share with them. Their optimism reigns supreme, however, and they push mountains in efforts to move their party to something a little more mainstream or at the very least reflective of the 21st Century.

I sat down with Princella Smith, a young woman who works for former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's new organization American Solutions. Ms. Smith got her start from a competition offered by MTV several years ago that allowed her to play a major roll in forums during the previous presidential election. She now serves as a major policy adviser and spokesperson for American Solutions - all before the age of 30. She is connected and personable.

In passing I mentioned that I was hoping to get an interview with Michael Steele candidate for Lt. Governor in Maryland. I had seen his commercials years ago when he ran and enjoyed the ad which became known as the Puppy Kicker ad from 2006 that I still find to be so outside the box and original. His concept of anti-washington and change endeared me to him, as much as a partisan hack like myself could be endeared to a republican.

Princella quickly dragged me over to what was known as Radio Row where all the talk news stations were poised to do interviews as politicians and prominent party people passed through the halls. Against the wall was Michael Steele doing a quick interview. Princella introduced us and before I knew it snapped a picture. I can safely say that it is the only picture of me with a Republican politician. But Michael Steele I don't mind, because at least he likes puppies. See the full video of the interview with Princella here.

Morgan Thomas is still in collage but already works on three campaigns this year all while serving her duties on the national board of Young Republicans. She is clearly a bright and eager young woman who hopes to win a mayoral seat before she is 30 and eventually run for governor. This was her first convention and the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin had excited and encouraged her as a young female republican. See the full video of my interview with her here.

Claudio Simpkins told me that he frequently gets confused for Barack Obama, and with a beaming smile it isn't hard to understand why. From a broken home that had drugs and hardship bearing down on him it would have been easy for him to fall between the cracks of the system. Instead, Claudio rose to the challenge and is now at Harvard Law School. He has a deep passion to give back to his community with no real immediate enthusiasm about running for office. It doesn't stop him from having a little fun when people ask his friends "Wait... Is that? Is that him!?" See the full interview of him here.

Richard Ivory came up to my cafe table asking if we could share it because there weren't any others around. We introduced ourselves and I knew instantly that we were allies in the youth movement. Richard started HipHopRepublican in attempts to bring more youth to politics on his side of the partisan divide. Republicans aren't popular in New York City and Richard describes himself as a moderate who is heavily influenced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg whose campaign he worked on. After talking issues with Richard, I couldn't help think that back home in the Bible-Belt he would be a Democrat... but decided not to alienate him.

It was Richard that guided me to some of these most remarkable people that I met while at the RNC. A majority of the time I spent with Richard was with him shouting and running after passers by who he thought would be good for me to talk to.

Richard is up to his chin in hope for the youth movement to gain traction in the GOP. His connectivity and tenacity are honorable and unbelievable, but his friendliness and hope for his party's future is what brings people to him. Along with his friends and colleagues he hopes to bring the GOP into the new century where the party is more reflective of our country in race, in gender, and in age. It is with this kind of community Richard thinks they can sustain their party.

While I certainly don't agree with them on a lot of issues, if these were the faces of the GOP it would be a lot more difficult for opposition to succeed.

CE and Brett, the co-authors of the new book Why You're Wrong About the Right think, however, that the old white stereotype is not the reality they see when looking at their friends. CE tells me she has a good time, goes out, parties and goes to ball games. She's not an old fuddy duddy like some of the delegates seen on the floor night after night. See the full interview with these two co-authors here.

She is clearly a strong, polished, and well educated young woman who remembers with clarity Bill Clinton's outreach at the MTV/Rock the Vote candidate forum in 1992 where the famous Boxer or Briefs question was asked. CE says the mere outreach by him was a huge step for a politician to make, and she's surprised that there haven't been any republicans since take on similar forms of outreach. The book presents photos and interviews with those who don't fit the traditional appearance of the GOP. Youthful and minority faces shine from the pages as the argument is presented that not everyone is old and white.

The others would say that its just most of them.

Embedded through the links above are the entire interviews of these remarkable young people, and above is my comprehensive clips and soundbites of their comments. Also see my interview with Armstrong Williams, conservative talk radio host about these topics.

At the end of the convention the only thing I can say is that regardless of the party, young people are consistently being ignored this election when our votes are the ones that have made candidates since 2006.

The New York Times blog The Caucus has an interesting story up on the Republican Party, its failure to reach out to young voters, and the feelings of frustration young Republicans have about it.

Check it out.

One comment I have is a general observation of all of these pieces that tend to be published every few weeks or so: those young Republicans that are interviewed are always ignoring reality. They feel like eventually there's going to be this gradual shift toward Republicans as the voters get older.

Some young Republicans seemed unsure of how to assuage their peers’ concerns. Asked how to respond to a younger generation that tends to be more supportive of gay rights, a young social conservative said that when people “become older” and have their own families, they will start to take social issues more seriously.

Mr. Black, a fiscal conservative who is openly gay, said almost the same thing about taxes: “When you get older you experience some of those issues that Republicans deal with.”

Still, he said, Republicans should not just wait for young Democrats to grow up. Republican activists “can’t just assume that they’re eventually going to come through. They need to be the alternative at the time they’re making the decision.”

The bit about taking social issues more seriously is simply not true. Research shows that those youth voting for a particular party for three straight elections typically develop a bond with that party for the rest of their lives. This myth has actually been shredded several times on this blog in the past.

Now, these younger Republicans do seem to feel the urgency a bit more than the old, white, male crowd. I actually commend them for looking for ways to reach out to youth. And there seems to be some acknowledgment early in the article that the way to do this is peer-to-peer interaction, so they're on the right path.

But this means we need to get our own act in order. Mike has discussed the atrophy of the youth infrastructure this election cycle due to the severely limited funding. It might be a while before the Republicans get the hint that an aggressive outreach toward youth will pay huge dividends in the future, but I don't want to be in a position where we're standing still until they do.

Republicans have a long way to go with youth, but we have lots of work to do too.

UPDATE: A Josh Marshall summation of Palin's comment last night in her speech makes it crystal clear why Republicans aren't successful with young voters.

Palin: Community service is for losers and freaks.

Well, Palin's speech was the best of the night, but that's not saying much.

Palin gave a decent speech, but the problem was its sarcasm and its nasty tone. MSNBC actually made it onto the floor with the delegates (they surprisingly were not harmed at all) and began interviewing some people who were enamored by the spectacle of an Alaskan hockey mom ripping Barack Obama to shreds in her nasally accent.

But no matter what Pat Buchanan thinks, appealing to the Republican delegates, to the Republican base (read: the same 27% that support President Bush) is not going to win you an election. Yes, the speech was exactly what was needed in order to get 27 out of every 100 Americans fired up; unfortunately for Palin, McCain, and the GOP, I think just as many, if not more, are now leaning in Obama's direction.

When we look at the bit about community organizing ("I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."), yes, it got a big reaction from the Republican faithful. But isn't this arguing against the social responsibility community organizers like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr. exemplified? I'm not saying it's a surprise that Palin or any Republican would use that language or tone; what I am saying is that Mr. Independent Voter, sick of politics as usual, and listening to this speech is not going to be taken with Ms. Palin's nasty jabs (even if it is in an Alaskan accent).

Yes, I think Palin was effective in shoring up the base tonight. But the problem for the McCain campaign is that she probably was just as effective at pushing those leaners even harder toward Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

(And I must ask -- how LAME is this convention??)

Tuesday was the day of the Ron Paul Revolution transition into the new Campaign for Liberty headed by former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul from Texas. Over 12,000 people attended the rally some from as far away as Georgia and New York who all drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota just to take part in the finally of the campaign.

Many young people were in attendance who expressed their disenchantment with the two party system, the war in Iraq, health care, and more.

The Convention was designed as a counter convention to the Republican National Convention across the Mississippi in St. Paul, Minnesota where they say their Revolution Continues. A major component the Campaign for Liberty lists is to gain a "foothold in political life at every level of government by expanding our precinct leader program."

Below is a quick video compilation of some interviews I did and what it was like in the event on Tuesday night. It was filled with a lot of great energy and enthusiasm as you'll see.

Crossposted from Rock the Trail

Roland Martin from CNN sits down with the Young Turks and talked about Sarah Palin and the importance of safe sex policies. Also addresses the color divide between the two conventions. Martin jokes that the GOP Convention has "about 12" African Americans in attendance at the conference. They also only have about 41 young people.

See the video here: