March (voter registration) Madness

Clinton may be dead in the water, but the contest goes on, notably in Pennsylvania, where voter registration closes on Monday and the campaigns and outside groups are working to get more young voters on the rolls.

The Obama campaign is working to activate it's young supporters via a mix of broadcast and field strategies. The campaign is running ads targeted at young supporters in the state to raise awareness about the registration deadline (tomorrow), and they've activated their on the ground supporters as well, notably with this video the campaign sent out earlier in the week:

On the non-profit side, Russell Simmon's Hip Hop Summit Action Network, which has done a lot of work in Philadelphia in recent years, is trying to register 15 - 20,000 young voters before the deadline.

I have not been able to talk to anyone at HSAN about their campaign, but from what I can tell it seems to consist solely of awareness raising PSAs run on local radio and featuring celebs such as Will Smith, Jay-Z, Wyclef and others. Call me cynical, but it's hard to see how radio ads = voter registrations (let along 20 thousand) without an accompanying field component. That field component may well be there, though all accounts of their work thus far make no mention of on-the-ground work.

Is all of this going to add up to an Obama win on April 22nd? Most certainly not, judging by current polls. But it could put a whole lot of new young voters on the rolls in PA, ensuring that the state deserves it's promotion/demotion from crucial swing state to solid "blue" state.