Obama to Launch National Voter Registration Campaign

I just got off a conference call with the Obama campaign's deputy manager Steve Hildebrand and North Carolina Congressman G.K. Butterfield. The call was to announce the launch of a new national voter registration campaign called Vote for Change (hmm....where have I heard that before?).

The campaign kicks off on May 10th with training and registration events in all 50 states. Far from being a one day mass registration drive, the campaign assured us that this would be a 6 month campaign to change the electorate in all states - Red, Blue, or Purple.

I tried to ask a question about the role young people would play in the campaign. Would they be targeted, or would they be manual labor? How would the Obama campaign target non-college youth, who have turned out in far fewer numbers than their college-educated and college-attending peers?

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance because all the "real" media from Fox News and other outlets started asking questions about race and Reverand Wright. To be honest, it was pretty fucking disgraceful and props to Hildebrand for not putting up with any of it. Nevertheless, those horse-race, non-scandal questions ate up the Q&A period and I never got called to ask a question.

One useful thing I did learn - Congressman Butterfield reminded us all that North Carolina has one-stop early voting, and that the Obama campaign was using text message reminders to get people to the polls. It will be interesting to see what that does for youth turnout in the state.