Reform

This just hit my inbox. Good to see the dialogue. Wish it had come a whole lot sooner.

Hopefully they can drum up a lot of press and help push back against the ridiculous meme that young people don't care about health care "because we're invincible." Try un/under-employed and up to our ears in school debt.

For Immediate Release

August 25, 2009

CONTACT:
Doug Thornell – 202-225-0227
Bridgett Frey – 202-225-5384

Van Hollen to Discuss What Health Care Reform Means for Young Americans

Will be Joined by Rock the Vote, United States Students Association, YouthBuild Alumni Council, and U.S. PIRG

Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow, Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Assistant to the Speaker, will join Rock the Vote, United States Students Association, YouthBuild Alumni Council, and U.S. PIRG to discuss why health care reform is vital for young Americans. President Obama’s plan for reform will provide quality, affordable health care for all young adults, ensuring lower costs and greater choices for a group who too often does not have access to care.

WHO:

• Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
• Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement, Rock the Vote
• Abby Berendt Lavoi, U.S. PIRG
• Gregory Cendana, President, United States Students Association
• Nina Saxon, YouthBuild Alumni Council

WHAT: To Discuss What Health Care Reform Means for Young Americans

WHEN: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 11 am

WHERE: Speaker’s Dining Room; H-122

NetCentric Advocacy picks up on something interesting. Mentions of the term "health care" on Facebook are currently at one of the lowest points since the final weeks of the election. In short, there is no campaign for reform happening on one of the biggest social networks in the country. The following chart shows the number of mentions of the phrase "health care" on Facebook wall posts over the last 12 months:

Facebook Lexicon, which produced the graphs, doesn't show the exact number of mentions. Rather, this is just a relative comparison of the popularity of the term over time. Still, the number of mentions is significantly smaller than during the election, particularly during the peak in November of 2008.

So what's going on here? Why does it seem like there is no activity on this topic online? Is this a failure of measurement? The lexicon results do end around mid-July, so it is possible that we're just not registering a huge surge in interest happening right now. Or is this a failure of organizing?

Ed. Note: this was first published on MyDD in July of 2005. Some edits have been made in this version to reference new research or clean up some language.

If you want to get apolitical youth involved in politics, you have to make political participation a cultural phenomenon.

I won't be shy about saying that "youth organizing," "youth issues," or most things that might fall under those rubrics get short shrift throughout the blogosphere. Granted, Kos and Atrios and Chris Bowers have all made efforts to point out what's going on - Atrios posts liberally about Drinking Liberally, Bowers gives Young Philly Politics shout-outs, and Kos has made multiple mentions of Cosmopolity and Music for America on his site - but for the most part, these topics are rarely picked up by the community. This surprises me. According to the 2006 Blog Ads Survey, 15% - a not insubstantial number - of the progressive blogosphere is between 14 and 30. My peers are in the blogosphere, they just don't speak or post from a generational point of view.

That is unfortunate, because "activating" and organizing young voters is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. 2004 was a record year for youth turnout. (PDF) Turnout was up to 51% (from 34%) nationwide, and turnout in swing states reached as high as 64%. It turned out that The Kids Were Alright in 2004. Their participation was a big boon to John Kerry, and as Joe Trippi noted in the WSJ, it saved his ass from McGovern-esque ridicule. Kerry carried young voters by a 10-point margin - a dramatic improvement over Al Gore's split decision with Dubya in 2000 - and the "kids" were only age demographic to break in favor of the Democrats. (The new study to read in this respect is A Gift to Democrats by Skyline Public Works. Look for a detailed analysis of that study soon.)

But to say that Kerry carried young voters is misleading. Many of us cast our ballots not for Kerry, but against Bush.