There has already been discussion on this Globe piece and how Jon Stewart is allegedly steering young adults away from politics in droves. Although I disagree with 98% of the op-ed (and there’s no need to rehash that on this entry), I do agree that many younger people are dissuaded from politics and activism because the only parts that they see are the acts of idiocy on the national level. So what’s the solution?
One idea put forth by Setti Warren (John Kerry’s Deputy State Director, worked for Clinton, Gore ’00, and Kerry ’04) is the re-institution of civics classes in public schools. Setti argued that we need to teach kids what government is actually for.
To further that trend, one of the attendees suggested a program where local elected officials speak at public schools, not with a party agenda, but simply about the role of state and local government. Setti then mentioned that when he was a student David Cohen (currently the mayor of Newton) spoke at his high school and that led him towards a career of political activism. Personally, I feel that this technique can help counter the image of buffoon politics that people see at the national level (and that is made into news/entertainment by Jon Stewart). Most people who get involved will start locally and do far more in their town than they will in DC, so simply putting a local face on politics could help change the pervasive negative image.
Ari something (sorry, I forget his last name), is currently a sophomore at Brandeis University. He spoke on how he’s organized ‘Deis for Deval and the Brandeis Democrats using online outlets like Facebook and Myspace.
I think we can all agree that recruiting and training youth activists will be an important long-term investment for Democrats of every stripe. Today’s college student is tomorrow’s campaign manager and 2015’s State Rep candidate. The question is how to get them involved. Any thoughts?
Both the Patrick and Murray campaigns have both done wonderful jobs at reaching out to young people through networking and use of the internet. Patrick doesn’t publicize it to the general community as well, but colleges know about him much more than Reilly and that is why he is more popular among young people. Murray has done much more than the other LG candidates when it comes to reaching out to young people to work on his campaign. Just check out his website: http://www.timmurray.org/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=32
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I know that young people are looking for ways to get involved, but they tend not to be actively recruited. There are also young people who end up getting involved when they realize how apathetic they have become. These are the trends I have seen among my peers. You need to pop them out of their college bubble and remind them that they will be entering the real world soon, and that there are real world issues that very much effect them right now.
I think I may have given the impression that all I believe is necessary to organize young people is to organize using the internet. I want to make clear that this is not what I believe at all. ‘Deis for Deval’s biggest strength has been that we’ve used the Facebook (and now that Brandeis DFA has endorsed us DFA-link as well) in order to contact students online, as well as by phone.
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What’s amazing about the internet is just how much information people are willing to post in a (semi)public sphere. On facebook people will put down what town & state they are from, and even categorize themselves as “very liberal” or “liberal”. When targeting people, all we have to do is search under those categories. They’ll even put their phone numbers on facebook (though if they don’t there is always the Brandeis Directory).
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I want to emphasize how important it has been to get people working the phone banks to call individuals. Facebook is a tool which makes it very easy to do voter identification, make ads to people in the Deval Patrick group and in various other groups, and so on.
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We still do the typical forms of organizing (flyering, dorm-storms etc. etc.)
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Another point of clarification: The organizing I’ve done with the Democrats has been for Deval Patrick and the Democrats voter registration drive last semester. Part of that has been time constraints, and part of that is that the Democrats, at least on this campus, need to get better organized.
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I believe in one of the forums somebody suggested a program where each Democratic Committee ward chair would have an intern. At first glance, I think this is a great idea. It gets people involved, it’s something to put on a kid’s resume, and it introduces them to the Democratic Committees.
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One thing I worry about, though, is that a lot of MA-Dems talk about getting involved in local politics, but many students don’t see the point. Newton I think is one of the best examples to show you why.
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When I try to get college students (from Newton) to be interested in local politics from Newton, most people ask me what the point is. After all, our US Senators and Congressmen are all Democrats, our Legislature, State Senate, Treasurer, Mayor, Aldermen & Alderwomen are all Democrats. Other than the governors race in MA, what exactly is the point of being on your town’s Democratic Committee? We’ve already won pretty much everything in our jurisdiction other than President of the United States and Governor. There are other organizations, other issues (quite frankly more interesting and exciting issues) to work on — and they don’t even have to leave campus to do it.
It just can’t be done to any “significant degree”.
Regardless of internet. Kids just don’t give a sh… and won’t vote. And if they do vote they are not goint to know the difference between Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick.
Just never will be a significant voting block, unless extremely pressing issue. Like criminalizing X_Box or push-up bras.
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Youth vote is over rated.
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But get involved kids. Campaigns are great places to get drunk and laid.
First of all, I am no kid . . .I have voted in every local, primary, state or federal election since I turned 18. I care about the issues, as do alot of young people I know. We are less likely to vote mainly because we are the most mobile age group (Seniors vote the most, because there is nothing else for them to do). As soon as we get the right to vote we are typically off to another state to attend college. Our absentee votes are rarely counted, unless the race is extremely close, like the WA Gubernatorial Race. Despite this we were the only demographic to vote for Kerry to be our President in the largest margin in 2004. You are right that we rarely vote in a block, and that is because we all typically have very different views. We are individuals, but when there is an issue that unites us we will get out the vote. We fueled ground operations in the 2004 election and were knocking on doors in every state. We are more likely to be independent, because we don’t feel the Republican, Democratic or Green party represent us as well as they could. But, most of us agree that Bush is bad for this country, and many of our friends are in the military, and in Iraq.
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So how dare you discount our vote, and what we do. Enjoy your push-up bra and your X-box, because I know I have no use for them.
who can point to the youth vote as carrying it for him/her.
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school committee
alderman
state rep
senate
state wide
any
please
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You explained the problems with the youth vote with an attitude as if the very same problems don’t exist. Therefore, in your view, I should not have pointed out the result.
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Hmmmmm
Saying that the typical youth is off to college in another state is realy out of touch thinking. That number is less then 10%.
There is a big world out there feminista. Take a look around. Please.
“Kids” aren’t recruited for their vote.
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They’re recruited for their contribution in terms of hard work and volunteer hours. Who else, except for a college kid, is motivated enough to work 40 hours a week without being paid, and do this week in and week out. Who else, except a college kid, can afford it?
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Outreach to the youth is not a bad idea in terms of vote, but smart campaigns see beyond the vote and to the work.
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Ernie, you ever worked on a real campaign? Ever seen who does the day to day work? Is it the one paid staffer, or the volunteers who lick the envelopes and make the phone calls? Who goes door to door?
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Lets not go out and do something crazy like pretending that it’s only about the vote. Politics neither begins nor ends on election day.
Thank you Polk for pointing out what I was trying to say in the first place. Campaigns and the Party need to reach out more to young people to get more involved, since we are the free labor and energy driving them. But as I was saying they haven’t been doing the best job at effectively reaching out to college students or other young people.
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I never denied the fact that young people have the lowest voter turnout, I merely explained why we do. My previous comments stated these reasons, and merely reacted negatively to condesending and rude comments that were directed towards my peer group(ex. “Kids just don’t give a sh… and won’t vote. And if they do vote they are not goint to know the difference between Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick. Just never will be a significant voting block, unless extremely pressing issue. Like criminalizing X_Box or push-up bras.Youth vote is over rated. But get involved kids. Campaigns are great places to get drunk and laid.”) I don’t know about you, but reading that comment just got me a tad bit irritated, since I’m obviously just a kid who wears a “pushup bra” and plays “X-box” who only got involved in politics to get “drunk and laid.”
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As for organizing on facebook, I immediately assumed we were talking about college students, since Facebook is a networking tool for those in college.
Feminista said she “merely reacted negatively to condesending and rude comments that were directed towards my peer group”.
This was in response to my comment on the lack of motivation among a significant number of college kids.
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You should be able to debate this without being insulted.
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Feminista, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you have a lot of maturing to do. I hope. For your sake.
If you had said that college students today (or any young person 18-25, college educated or not)aren’t motivated – I would have agreed three-fold. I am more than willing to admit that my generation and the generations following mine are spoiled and unmotivated to get involved. This is mainly their own fault, but also because their parents weren’t involved and didn’t expose them to political action growing up. I know the reason I am more political & vote is because of my parents influence. And studies have shown this to be the case.
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But back to you calling me “immature” because I was offended by your insults — You didn’t choose to debate in a mature manner, instead you chose to take the childish route of name calling. You never put out any real arguements, and merely chose to insult the intelligence of those who are a part of Generation Y. Referring to push-up bras and getting drunk and laid as our only reasons to get involved. For those of us, who don’t necessarily sit around on our asses, who read the newspaper, and try to get Democrats elected in our limited free time your comments are rude and hurtful. Most students & young people I know are working more than one job, some are taking classes at night or part-time, and still find the time to collect signatures or knock on doors.
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Besides I don’t know why I even dignified your BS mudslinging with a response . . .believe me I’ve learned my lesson.
You agree with my point. Yet you cannot take it in a satirical way. That goes to my last point.
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I wouldn’t want you speaking for my generation.
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I think the kids say “lighten-up”
“Who else, except for a college kid, is motivated enough to work 40 hours a week without being paid, and do this week in and week out. Who else, except a college kid, can afford it?”
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Polk how about someone looking for a job? How about the person who already got a job. How about family and close friends. How about for most campaigns that is the core and within that the real workers are usually 1 or 2 people who are close friend or relative. An incumbant builds up favors and then has bigger campaign crew. But instead of 1 or 2 people it is now 4 or 5 but he has a lot more people to hold signs on a few saturday mornings.
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In Large campaigns, State wide campaigns, and many locals, envelopes are licked, stuffed, and addressed by machines in a mailing house. Money is raised via professional fundraiser. I can go on. The real help is from shit loads of people looking for something. Jobs, jobs, jobs, contracts, judgeships. If of course candidate is credible. And many paid help. You can order the paid help around, but you have to be nice to volunteers. And judging from these comments it appears that today’s college kids can’t take criticism.
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Polk. I’m sorry, my experience has been different than your’s.
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Yeah there are young people of course. Mostly post college.
Every state wide campaign has a few kids. But don’t flatter yourself.
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I am curious, are you a liberal arts student?
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By the by, I did say in my first comment that campaigns are great for college kids to work on because they can get drunk and perhaps laid.
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Another thing, door to door canvassing means crap, unless done by the candidate, or family member. Means nothing beyond local campaigns. Unless of course you are talking about signature gathering. Other then that. Really. Who votes for someone because some eager beaver knocks on your door.
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But again, my experiences maybe differnt than your’s, Polk.
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Polk. Uh, yeah. You are right politics does not end on election day. But campaigns do. What have you done for me lately?
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Finally, where do you “kids” get these attitudes.
WOW.
Ernie, I’m going to have to disagree with your charicature of campaign tactics. I’ve been a volunteer on a good number of state legislative races in the past year and all of them were overwhelmingly staffed by people in our age range of “youth.”
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During the Jehlen campaign last year, because much of the canvassing and calling went on during the summer months, we had at least a dozen college kids who were regularly helping out, not to mention many others who came in just a few times. During the day of the primary election, there were over 100 volunteers helping out, many of them young adults, none of them paid (outside of the three official campaign staffers).
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Were these volunteers looking to get something out of it? Of course. I was interested in gaining experience, as were many, that would hopefully lead to employment at some point. And many young adults who lived in the community were there because they saw an opportunity to do something for their hometowns. We could argue back and forth about whether or not there’s such a thing as a truly selfless act, but I don’t think that’s the point.
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For the record, every campaign I’ve worked on has done its envelope licking and stuffing in-house, primarily by volunteers. (Bulk mail is another matter, but that usually isn’t in envelopes.) And I disagree with your take on canvassing. Person-to-person contact, even if not by the candidate, is one of the most effective means of communication in a campaign. And no GOTV effort is complete without an army of door-knockers reminding people to vote.
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I’m honestly not entirely sure what the argument is about here. Yes, there are plenty of kids who don’t give a crap about politics, but the same can easily be said for any demographic. Overwhelmingly, people are passive observers at best when it comes to elections. But just like it would be foolish to write off any single group of people as unreachable, we as a party SHOULD be making a solid effort to reach out to young voters. It only makes sense in the long run.
…thats way cool what your doing using facebook and myspace. Ernie is right about the frustrations of organizing the college vote. It’s like nailing jello to a tree, no matter how hard you work at it (and at one point I did) they never voted near the amount you hoped.
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So here’s wishing you luck with the new tools of the internet to get the colleges to vote. Whether it is successful with them, what you’re doing is an electoral harbinger.
Underlying all of this is the assumption that the youth vote can be “rallied” by youth “leaders”… I’d be careful looking for silver bullets, et al. Youths are a tad more diffuse.
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If you really want to get to get youths riled up, look for some common ground beyond the social issues. Perhaps higher education funding, no?
Theere is absolutely no “one silver bullet.” It’s important to reach out to youth, along with others. I was recently asked to speak to a local Democratic Committee on how to recruit more youth to their group. I accepted but with the caveat that I would speak on reaching out to a broad range of people. People see “youth” as a panacea and it’s not. An earlier poster mentioned older people vote because they have mothing else to do. That was condescending and doesn’t accurately characterize the situation. Older people vote for many reasons. We need to recruit people who have time to volunteer, and that is often young people, before they start famailies and young retired people. It’s important for young people to know that they are welcome and can do meaningful work within the Democratic Party. How do we get Democrats into the Mass. house, senate and higher office? By starting locally and running for local office or getting involved.
Its simple . . . The attitudes and welcoming nature of people like “Ernie Boch, III” who truly seem to want to welcome us into working with the Democratic Party.
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As for young people helping local & state rep races, most students don’t feel as connected to their college communities, as opposed to the towns in which they grew up. They don’t really care as much about local public works, or the hours the public library are open, because their lives revolve around the campus they live on which provides for their daily needs. During college local government doesn’t have a real role in their lives (At least one that they can see).
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I truly applaud efforts to try and get more young people involved by using the internet (facebook, etc) and other resources, but I will say this – College Democrats are already using them. What campaigns & the Party need to do is reach out to college democrat chapters. But, quite honestly, as of yet many of them have failed to do so in an effective manner. If you would like examples I’m more than willing to dish them out.
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Anyhow, as it stands, I will remain a life-long Democrat, despite the Earnies of the Party, because there are better people like myself coming in.
My god feminista. What does my attitude have to do with young people getting off their ass and going to vote? Is that an excuse?
All I said was candidates have been attempting to organize the youth vote since elections began. It never results in a significant voting block. That doesn’t mean the vote doesn’t count. Just from a poilitical organizatrion view the numbers are never big. Youth vote is looked upon as voting block, just like Elks club, one eyed albinos, ploish veterans, etc. Problem is candidates believe they can pigeon hole youth vote. Can’t. Youth vote different ways. 1968 aint walkin’ through that door, sweetheart. (ty Rick Pitino)
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And I can’t get over your limited view of young people as all being away in some far off college. I guess community colleges and non-students don’t exist in your elitist world.
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And you never addressed my questions. What campaigns has youth vote made significant contribution? I’m sorry, I am making the sin of ‘looking at the facts’. What are they teaching you in grad school?
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And your comment about old people voting because they have nothing to do again illustrates your limited view of the world.
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It must be great living in a cacoon.
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And…
and…
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I could go on and on and on.
Sandi, you know that I truly do adore you but there seems to be a pattern to your posts. When the facts get in the way of your upbeat optimism you assasinate the character of the writer — you did it to me when I attacked Murray and you are doing it to Ernie when he is right on the facts. As the future of the party (we both are) I suggest that you listen to others who are more realistic… but don’t lose your enthusiasm.
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The youth vote is not worth overanalyzing because it is not significant. Probably never will be… or at least not until there is another draft.
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It is important to remember that “Youth” and “College” are very different. We live in a bubble because we are active college students — most young people are either not in college, barely in college, college and working full time or simply don’t care to get involved in local shit. I think your characterization of the transient nature of young people is applicable only to about 5% of young people TOPS.
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Keep the big picture in mind…
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Wes
Does any of us really have time to be having this sludgefest?
aftertig, correct me if I’m wrong here, but from what I understand young adults (18-25) voted in 2004 in roughly the same percentages as the national average, yes? I remember you saying something along those lines at DCI but I may be misremembering.
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I think that, as a party, we focus too heavily on election cycles. During a campaign is not the time to broaden our base. A campaign needs to get its votes from the most cost-effective groups, and no, youths dont’ fall into that category.
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What we need to be thinking about across the board (not just with youths) is how to expand support during off-years. The way I see it, one function of the state and national party organizations should be to invest in long-term programs that campaigns simply can’t afford to do. We need to be reaching out to youth, minority, and low-income people when there aren’t campaigns going on so that when the elections do roll around they’ll be more likely to pay attention and vote.
I don’t recall saying anything about voting percentages at DCI.
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For whatever it’s worth a quick google search reveals More than 51 percent of citizens ages 18 to 29 voted in 2004. In 2000, it was 42.3 percent. That seems to be about on par with the national average, excluding senior citizens.
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[The Washington Post
Reports on the Vote or Die campaign http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35290-2004Nov8_2.html]
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Incidentally, I don’t like “Vote or Die” the logo, but it seemed to get a lot of press, which I suppose is good.
Also, remember that the youth vote should not be considered a voting block, because so many different factors go into how young people vote.
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For instance while there are core issues that unite women of all ages and backgrounds – maternity leave, healthcare, wage gaps, childcare etc. There are still obvious disparities between how Married vs. Single women vote, as well as other “blocks” that interject.
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Young people don’t have these core issues, because they aren’t young forever, they come from very different backgrounds, educations, races, religions etc. These demographic identifiers play a larger role in determining how they will vote, rather than the fact that they are 18-24 yrs of age. For example, polling/studies have shown that those with a higher education level are more likely to vote Democrat, etc.
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The young people who aren’t voting today, may be the middle-aged people who won’t be voting in 2020. Only time will tell if we change as we get older. But, I still strongly believe in the idea of hookin’ em when they are young.
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Also important to note – the U.S has one of the lowest voter turn-out rates in the world. And every Presidential election year from the 1960s until 2000 that rate was decreasing and then experienced a small increase in 2000 and 2004. And as eury13 noted, voter turnout is even worse during the off years.