Michael Connery's blog

I've spent most of my day working on the ABC/Stossel piece - promoting it, etc. But it was far from the only young voter story in the news today. Here's a roundup of what else was out there (all reported accurately, as far as I can tell):

• A few days ago, Time Magazine declared that young people might actually be a deciding factor in Florida, a reddish swing state now trending blue thanks to increased youth registration, african american turnout, and movement by hispanics towards the Democratic party.
• Reuters hopped on board the youth bandwagon in this report on the USA Today/MTV/Gallup poll we blogged a few days ago.
• At the Huffington Post, newly elected College Democrats president Katie Naranjo posted a piece about the dirty tricks designed to drive down youth turnout, and a new project by the College Democrats to protect the student vote - Respect the Youth Vote.
• The LA Times does a decent job profiling efforts to use technology to help young people register to vote.
• Bloomberg News has a 30,000 foot over view of the youth vote, both this cycle and in the recent past.
• The Chicago Tribune also ran a piece about the "surging" youth vote this cycle.

Update II: Over on the Disco Biscuit's web forums, one of the young men featured in the video colorfully expresses his displeasure at being portrayed inaccurately by 20/20:

Yeah, I got fucked. I'm the second incorrect answer to rowe vs. wade or whatever. I mean let's get serious. I'm a graduating college student who answered all of the question correctly except that one and what state is John McCain from. That shit was slandered as fuck. It was kinda funny seein myself on that shit though. The funnier part is that right after I watched it I asked the like ten people sitting around me if they new what that case was and only one person knew it. Fuck the editor of that clip.

Update - I'm hearing from HeadCount that Sullivan, the segment producer, disputes that the portrayal of the girl who responded "12" to the "number of Senators" question is inaccurate. I'm waiting to see a transcript and hopefully view tape of the full interview before I issue a correction. The rest of this critique remains unchallenged by 20/20.
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On Friday at 10pm, 20/20 will run a piece on the youth vote called "Maybe It's Your Civic Duty Not To Vote," in which they suggest that uninformed voters - primarily young people - not turn out to the polls. In talking to the youth group,HeadCount, featured in the piece, it is clear that 20/20 and Stossel were less interested in discovering the truth about young voters while filming their piece than in crafting a hatchet job meant to cast doubt on the growing youth vote.

You can view the 4 minute segment here.

There is a lot that is wrong with this piece. Yes, there are many uninformed voters, but that category is not limited to young people, who are unfortunately the main target of this piece. Anyone who has ever watched Jay Leno could tell you that many Americans are uninformed about current events. Unfortunately, some see that as an excuse to rob people of their constitutional rights, and Stossel and ABC are happy to play along.

But all is not as it appears in this report. In talking with HeadCount, the group featured in the piece, it's clear that Stossel and 20/20 were not interested in giving the young people they interviewed a fair shake. They had a narrative to their story and stuck by it - facts be damned. More than that, they worked -um, creatively - to make sure their point of view dominated the piece. Here's a list of inaccuracies and selective editing that viewers won't see:

• At 1 minute into the piece, Stossel interviews two voters who can accurately answer questions about American civics, after which, far more concert-goers and "regular folks" are shown who are unable to answer similar questions. According to HeadCount, this is not an accurate representation of the percentage of interviewees who successfully answered the questions. Far more concert-goers were knowledgeable than implied by the report.
• At minute 1:20, the report shows a girl saying that there are only 12 Senators in the US. The only problem? She wasn't responding to a question about the number of US Senators, but about the number of Supreme Court Justices. Yes, she was still incorrect, but Stossel and 20/20 manipulated the footage to make her appear even less knowledgeable than she actually was.

  Staffers at HeadCount say that this is often the case with the featured interviewees, who were asked not a single question, as the report implies, but many. Many interviewees were knowledgeable about some issues, but less so when it came to other issues. The young voter responses included in the report were cherry-picked by Stossel and ABC producers to highlight only the incorrect answers.

• At 1:42, Stossel asks Marc Brownstein if voters should be "knowledgeable" (whatever that means) before casting a ballot. Brownstein replies that "there are a lot of of uneducated voters out there." But that wasn't all he said. In the full interview, Brownstein went on to explain that HeadCount distributes nonpartisan issue sheets at the tables alongside the voter registration materials the organization offers each night. That educational effort was completely left out of Stossel's report.
• Also cut out of the full report were interviews with very knowledgeable young HeadCount staffers, teachers, and youth activists - generally the most informed portion of the pool of interviewees.

HeadCount staffers who followed the camera crew throughout the day offered interesting coda to those interviews. During the filming, Andrew Sullivan, a Harvard graduate and producer of the piece, mistakenly tried to correct one young concert goer who was asked about the length of single term for a congressional representative. The young concert-goer, correctly, said two years. Sullivan, incorrectly, tried to tell them it was four. I guess Sullivan won't be voting this year?

All of this is par for the course for John Stossel, who has often had a rocky relationship with the truth. Here are just a few examples pulled from his Wikipedia page:

Controversies

[edit] Galbraith and Stossel

Liberal economist James K. Galbraith said that Stossel, in a story on laissez-faire economics in September 1999, used an out of context clip of Galbraith to make it seem that Galbraith had said nearly the opposite of what he meant. Stossel denied that Galbraith's views had been misrepresented but changed the words with which he introduced the Galbraith clip in rebroadcasts of the program.[27][28][29]

[edit] Organic Vegetables

A February 2000 story about organic vegetables on 20/20 included statements by Stossel that tests had shown that neither organic nor conventional produce samples contained any pesticide residue, and that organic food was more likely to be contaminated by E. coli bacteria. The Environmental Working Group objected to his report, mainly questioning his statements about bacteria, but also managed to determine that the produce had never been tested for pesticides. They communicated this to Stossel, but after the story's producer backed Stossel's recollection that the test results had been as described, the story was rebroadcast months later, uncorrected, and with a postscript in which Stossel reiterated his claim. Later, after a report in The New York Times confirmed the Environmental Working Group's claims, ABC News suspended the producer of the segment for a month and reprimanded Stossel. Stossel apologized, saying that he had thought the tests had been conducted as reported. However, he asserted that the gist of his report had been accurate.[30][31][32][33][34]

[edit] Televangelist Lifestyle

In a March 2007 segment about finances and lifestyles of televangelists, 20/20 aired a clip of a TV minister originally broadcast by the Lifetime Network in 1997. The clip made it seem that the minister was describing his wealth in extravagant terms, when actually, he was telling a parable about a rich man. ABC News twice aired a retraction and apologized for the error. The minister filed a lawsuit against Stossel, his source for the clip, 20/20, and ABC for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.[35][36]

Stossel, who is a self-proclaimed libertarian (a position that obviously does not extend to the freedom to vote for one's leaders), and frequent contributor to the conservative website Townhall.com, closes out the piece by highlighting the work of fellow libertarian Byan Caplan, an econ professor who made his bones espousing an elitist view of democracy in which only a select few should cast their ballots:

"Maybe 75 percent of people can name the vice president. ... The public's knowledge of politics is shockingly low," economist Bryan Caplan said.

In his book "The Myth of the Rational Voter," Caplan argues that people who know little about our government ought to stay home on Election Day.

But aren't Americans always told it's their civic duty to vote?

"This is very much like saying, 'It's our civic duty to give surgery advice,'" Caplan said. "Now, we like to think that political issues are much less complicated than brain surgery, but many of them are pretty hard. If someone doesn't know what he's talking about, it really is better if they say, 'Look, I'm just gonna leave this in wiser hands.'"

But isn't it elitist to say only some people should vote?

"Is it elitist to say only some people should do brain surgery?" Caplan said. "The bottom line is, if you don't know what you're doing, you are not doing the country a favor by voting."

Voting is serious business. Democracy works best when people educate themselves. So maybe instead of telling people things like "Rock the Vote," these groups should say "Rock or Vote."

All Americans - young and old - may not be experts on the every issue, but they are experts on their own lives. They know that they're not getting enough help. That tuition is too high and grants are too low. That they need to drive to work, and heat their house or apartment, but energy prices are too high. That they are one broken leg away from bankruptcy and that getting a loan to buy a house just became that much more unattainable. And let's face it, it's not as if the experts have that great a track record when it comes to the issues of the day, whether we're talking about the subprime housing market, the war in Iraq, or ending our addiction to fossil fuels.

Democracy is for all of us, not just a select few. As a nation, we eliminated the idea of literacy tests decades ago, and rightly so. Kudos to HeadCount for pushing back on this argument to the extent that was possible within the piece, and shame on Stossel and ABC for enabling it. Young voters have faced a hostile media for decades, always pining about youth apathy. Now, on the cusp of a record breaking turnout, for a major media outlet to question the validity of those votes on such flimsy grounds, in opposition our constitutional rights, is the height of irresponsibility. Dare I say it, it's unamerican.

If you would like to express your displeasure about this piece to ABC, send a polite but firm email to the producer, Andrew Sullivan, outlining your concerns: Andrew.G.Sullivan [at] abc [dot] com

The Caucus is reporting that the Obama campaign just became the first presidential campaign to buy advertisement time on MTV Networks:

Officials at MTV Networks report that he has bought commercial time on three of its networks, Comedy Central, VH1 and Spike, and that his ads could begin running on those outlets as early as Thursday.

Until this year, MTV’s networks did not accept political advertising, and Mr. Obama becomes the first presidential campaign to buy time with them, an official at MTV said.

Mr. Obama’s latest purchase of advertising adds yet another layer to what has been one of the most multi-layered, presidential advertising campaigns in history, reaching all sorts of voters with specially tailored messages on their specially tailored outlets.

Mr. Obama’s campaign confirmed it has made a “youth buy” but did not share the duration of this new rotation.

Obama is the first Presidential campaign to buy ad-time, but you may remember that MoveOn and the conservative Let Freedom Ring both ran ads earlier this cycle. I'll post video of the ad once I see it online.

Here's a statement from Forward Montana CEO Matt Singer on today's voter protection win over the state GOP:

"Obviously, it is good news that Mr. Eaton is now moving to withdraw the 6,000 challenges he filed on behalf of the Montana Republican Party. This action is a vindication of the concerns raised by Forward Montana and other voting rights groups in Montana since day one: that these challenges impacted large numbers of properly and legally registered Montana voters and created unnecessary mass confusion.

"Moving forward, we are currently investigating the legal basis for withdrawing a sworn, signed, and notarized affidavit. We will also continue to monitor activity by the Montana Republican Party and other political organizations and campaigns from all sides of the political spectrum to ensure that no activities are being undertaken that threaten the voting rights of Montanans.

"We now have an obligation to ensure that this situation never repeats itself. We have initiated conversations with lawmakers, policy experts, and constituency groups to craft a legislative agenda to prevent spurious challenges in the future. We are optimistic that a well-crafted legislative package will receive bipartisan support in the 2009 Montana Legislature."

I feel like it's so rare to hear about progressives winning battles on election protection. This was some badass work by Forward Montana to protect the vote in their state.

Update: Here's another take from Stella, an organizer with Swing Semester:

Ohioans are very skeptical of voting. In 04 many of their votes were not counted. I know all of these things are designed to help with that. But in their minds it is harder to convince people to vote early. In the end it is still an absentee ballot…

I personally did register before the deadline. And I could have gone and voted early but chose not to. I want to vote on election day. As many other democrats do. While we were at the vp debate watch party last week the Obama campaign was trying to get "die hard" dems to vote early… And they were all saying no… I think that we are all so scared that someone is trying to take our vote away. And with all of the lawsuits that were filed leading up to golden week it created more tension around it. I think in the end we will get them to vote it is just going to be harder to get them to vote early…

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The AP is running a story reporting low turnout in Ohio during early voting. The numbers:

As of Monday evening with polling sites still open, projections were that about 4,000 to 5,000 voters in the state's four largest counties would have taken advantage of the policy, which survived multiple court challenges.

Elections officials were surprised by the low turnout.

"With all the hoopla we were anticipating a whole lot more," said Steve Harsman, the elections director in Montgomery County, home to Dayton.

Overall, between 20,000 and 25,000 people were expected to have voted early in person in the four counties, beginning Sept. 30. The four counties include the state's largest urban areas — Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Dayton — and the focal points of campaign get-out-the-vote efforts.

The Columbus Dispatch had more specific youth numbers to add to this equation:

Of the 9,280 people who had cast absentee ballots in person as of Monday, 3 percent were registered Republicans and 39 percent were Democrats, records show. The rest were unaffiliated.

Of the 2,097 people who also registered to vote before casting an absentee ballot in Franklin County, two-thirds were younger than 34 and nearly 80 percent were from Columbus.

At first blush, that's disappointing news. Not the least because the Obama campaign and independent youth organizers were pushing early voting in the state. I confess that I was a little shocked when I read the story until I talked to Tony Cani, the Political Director of the Young Democrats. Here's what Tony had to say about the situation on the ground:

I really don't think this is that big of a surprise. There is only one voting site per county open - this isn't like early voting in many other states that allows you go to a number of community polling places to cast a ballot.

So, for example, in Franklin County the polling place is in downtown Columbus, an area that has very few residents and has a very high vacancy rate even for businesses. Why would someone schlep down there to vote? It isn't' really easier or more convenient. This takes away the primary argument organizers use to get people to vote early.

I didn't realize that there were so few polling locations. That's certainly a huge obstacle to face in scaling up participation into significant numbers. It seems like those promoting early voting in the state did a poor job at managing expectations here. Though, to be honest, they were in a bit of a Catch-22. They had to talk up the potential of early voting in order to recruit volunteers and drum up interest among potential voters, but there just wasn't enough time to really make it work.

I normally don't like to do two quick hits posts so close together, but three items came to my attention today that you should know about.

• First, Matt Singer of Forward Montana wrote to me last night saying that the GOP in Montana is withdrawing their challenges to voters in the state. Meanwhile, ABC News reports that more dirty tricks to keep students from the polls are ramping up - this time at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Zack Exley has a must-read piece in the Huffington Post outlining the scope and methods of the Obama field program. Here's a taste:
  

  The Ohio campaign is attempting to build teams in 1,231 campaign-defined "neighborhoods," each covering eight to ten precincts. They are targeting virtually every inhabited square mile of the state. The campaign claimed to have teams in 65% of neighborhoods when I visited in early September. That's risen to 85% coverage at press time—and they are shooting for 100%. In contrast, the Kerry campaign effectively wrote off rural counties, and completely abandoned them in the final few weeks of the campaign in a last minute all-in shift to the cities.

  It was a huge risk for the national field program to have paid staff take the time to methodically build volunteer teams instead of rushing directly to spend all their time running voter contact activities themselves. From the point of view of the conventional wisdom of much of the pre-Obama field organizing world, the campaign is actually taking two big risks: first they are risking everything on the effectiveness of masses of volunteers, then they are risking everything again by relying on volunteer teams to lead those masses. What if teams was just a bunch of hippy nonsense? What if it turned out there just weren't that many unpaid activists capable of running high-quality canvasses?

• And one more item from the Obama campaign. Yesterday Sarah blogged about a video where kids talk to their parents about supporting Sen. Obama. Today, the campaign launched an entire micro-site backing up that video, The Talk. The site has tips on how to broach the subject, talking points on various issues, and good ideas on how to keep the conversation going and "win the news cycle" in your parents house, including emailing blog posts and news articles to fight any misinformation the 'rents are getting in their inbox or on Fox News.

Snap thoughts on the debate:

• Tom Brokaw was an insufferable ass during the debate. That cannot be stressed enough.
• Considering this was the 'open' and 'participatory' debate with questions coming in over the intertubes, this was a much more structured, controlled event than the last debate. And I would say that voter participation in this debate was zero to nil. C'mon, I mean there were four questions from "the internet," zero transparency in how those questions were selected, and Brokaw decided to throw out one of the questions and ask his own on the fly.
• Considering the role that young people are playing in this campaign, and that this debate was focused on the economy, the #1 issue for young voters, there was very little youth input in the debate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but only 1 questioner seemed youngish: the woman who asked about Green jobs. This needs to be double checked and I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but after 90 minutes I was asking "where were we in this debate?"

  Now, that makes sense. Supposedly these questioners were chosen by Gallup and were all "uncommitted" voters. Youth are anything but uncommitted this year. This might have been an instance where high youth participation and partisanship actually cut our chances of having our voice heard at the debate.

Continuing on the youth thread, I need to go and read through the transcript to get a better sense of how youth issues were addressed (a task for tomorrow morning), but a quick search of the CNN transcript for the terms "youth," "young" and "student" reveals 6 instances - 3 by McCain and 3 by Obama. Two of McCain's answers dealt with his own military record and were highly defensive. In comparison, all three of Obama's answers substantively addressed the current situation of young voters:

Mccain - Debt: We obviously have to stop this spending spree that's going on in Washington. Do you know that we've laid a $10 trillion debt on these young Americans who are here with us tonight, $500 billion of it we owe to China?

Obama - Education: And, number three, we've got to deal with education so that our young people are competitive in a global economy.

Obama - Service: And the last point I just want to make. I think the young people of America are especially interested in how they can serve, and that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in doubling the Peace Corps, making sure that we are creating a volunteer corps all across this country that can be involved in their community, involved in military service, so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.

McCain - Military Service: In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation? And said we shouldn't. Unfortunately, almost 300 brave young Marines were killed.

So you have to temper your decisions with the ability to beneficially affect the situation and realize you're sending America's most precious asset, American blood, into harm's way. And, again, I know those situations.

I've been in them all my life. And I can tell you right now the security of your young men and women who are serving in the military are my first priority right after our nation's security.

McCain - Military Service: I understand what it's like to send young American's in harm's way. I say -- I was joking with a veteran -- I hate to even go into this. I was joking with an old veteran friend, who joked with me, about Iran.

Obama - College Costs: Wages and incomes have gone down. People have lost their health care or are going bankrupt because they get sick. We've got young people who have got the grades and the will and the drive to go to college, but they just don't have the money.

I'll try to go over to the "My Debates" site and see if I can pull video of these quotes out (like you are theoretically supposed to be able to do).

Forward Montana reports from their protest outside GOP Rep Dennis Rehberg's office this morning:

MISSOULA, Mont. – Despite the rain, young Montana voters assembled in front of Congressman Dennis Rehberg's Missoula office this morning to rally against voter suppression tactics employed by the state Republican Party. Last week, the party's Executive Director, Jacob Eaton, filed 6,000 flimsy challenges to voters' registrations in historically Democratic, Native American, and young counties. Erik Iverson, the chair of the Montana Republican Party, also serves as Rehberg’s chief of staff.

“Iverson either needs to take credit for this pathetic assault on democracy or fire Eaton and apologize to voters statewide,” said Matt Singer, CEO of Forward Montana and one of the challenged voters.

Iverson has remained silent on the voter challenges promopting soaked protesters to carry signs saying “Where does the buck stop?” and “Eaton? Iverson? Who's in charge?”

“It's outrageous that our tax dollars are paying Erik Iverson's $160,000 salary while he attacks our constitutional right to vote," said Richelle DeVoe, a Missoula native and student at the University of Montana.

This is a pretty substance-heavy Quick Hits. Any one of the items here should merit a full blog post. There's just not enough time, damn it! Not enough time . . .

• CNN Money has an almost great segment on how the economic downturn may be driving young voters to the polls. My only quibble - in the final line the reporter claims that in the past "young people were eager to register, but not to vote." That's just not true. 80% of registered young voters actually cast a ballot on election day. Registration is the problem, not turnout. Or, as I've been saying - higher youth turnout is not about curing apathy but increasing access. (h/t Chris Kennedy of Rock the Vote)

• In the wake of GOP voter suppression efforts that have ensnared young people and veterans in Montana, Forward Montana has launched Montana Voter Suppression (.org), a website to track, report, and prevent voter suppression efforts in the state. Earlier today, the group also held a protest in front of the office of MT Rep Dennis Rehberg's office. Rehberg's chief of staff, Erik Iverson, is the Chair of Montana GOP, the group behind the voter challenges.
• Speaking of voter suppression, Nancy Scola and Allison Fine have a spectacular post over at Tech President detailing how Twitter could be used as an election protection tool.
• GQRR has a new poll out, this time of women. The results show that unmarried women, including many young women, are the key to Obama's success among that demographic. Unmarried women are supporting Obama 62 - 33%. So much for the "Palin Effect."

• In Kansas, Jim Slattery is embarking on a campus tour to drum up youth support for his Senate campaign. All down-ballot candidates should consider this if they want to ride the youth wave to its fullest. As much as we'd like to think they do, Obama's coattail don't necessarily extend all the way down the ballot.
• Veterans group IAVA issued it's congressional score card today, and John McCain earned a big fat D. The Disabled Veterans of American didn't score him much better, giving the Senator a 20% rating. So much for supporting the troops.

A new report from the Center for American Progress notes that on a number of core progressive issues, the gap between people of color and whites is radically shrinking - if not erased - among young Americans:

• Over the past 20 years, an average of 86 percent of blacks aged 18 to 29 agreed that labor unions are necessary to protect workers, while 72 percent of young whites agreed—a 14 percentage-point progressive gap. Today the gap is just 2 percentage points.

• Forty-six percent of young Hispanics over the past two decades believed it is the government’s responsibility to ensure a good job and standard of living for all, while just 35 percent of young whites did—a gap of 11 percentage points. Today, the gap is less than 6 percentage points.

• An average of 55 percent of young blacks and 54 percent of young Hispanics over the past 20 years have supported universal health care provided by the government, while 45 percent of young whites held this view. Today, young whites are slightly more supportive of universal government-provided health care than young Hispanics and nearly as supportive as young blacks.

• Over the last two decades, an average of 88 percent of young blacks and 83 percent of young Hispanics thought federal spending for education should be increased, compared
to 78 percent of young whites. Today, Millennial generation whites have nearly cut in half the gap between themselves and young blacks and have overtaken Hispanics.

• An average of 85 percent of blacks, 72 percent of Hispanics, and 51 percent of whites aged 18 to 29 over the past two decades have supported increased federal spending for the poor—a gap of 34 percentage points between young blacks and young whites and 21 percentage points between young Hispanics and young whites. In the most recent survey, whites had reduced the gap with blacks by almost 10 percentage points and had cut it in half with Hispanics.

So what is causing this shift and consolidation in political philosophy among Millennials? The report looks at the economy as a potential catalyst for this shift among young white voters:

Young adults today have more similar views perhaps because they face a common economic struggle. Millennials are confronting far more significant economic challenges than other recent generations—such as lower rates of health care coverage, worse job prospects, and higher levels of student loan debt—and are likely reacting to the conservative policies that have created much of their financial difficulties. It also appears that the gap is closing in part because young minorities tend to keep the progressive views of their elders, while young whites are increasingly rejecting the more conservative views of elder whites.

This is generally in keeping with what we've seen in partisan politics. Millennials are self-identifying as Democrats in greater numbers than ever before, and even at levels of 50 - 29% over Republicans. Young voters are showing their support for Obama at a rate of 2 - 1 over John McCain.

What this new CAP reports adds to the discussion is evidence that this isn't about a cult of personality. It's about issues and core philosophies about the roles and responsibilities of government. As no other generation in recent times, Millennials are forging a generational policy consensus around economic issues and the role of government. It's still nothing more than potential energy that needs to be activated and mobilized towards a legislative agenda, but this is a good sign and something that the November 5th Coalition, Gen Vote, HCAN, and We Can Solve It can build off of post-election.