Daily Kos

DemfromCT over at DailyKos has an interesting interview with Ruy Teixeira, an expert on political demographics and a Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and Center for American Progress and author of the recently published working paper titled, Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties.

While you should go check it out in its entirety, here are the main points, which should be very familiar to faithful Future Majority readers.

• The Republican base is shrinking. The white, working class vote, a demographic that you hear all the "smart" television personalities talk about, is vanishing before our eyes, notes Teixeira. We heard a lot about this particular voting bloc in the 2008 Democratic primary, especially in the Ohio, Texas, and Mississippi contests. Yet, those states, like everywhere else, are seeing the size of this group diminish.
  

  In Texas, the white working class share is down 17 points, with minorities up 9 points and white college graduates up 7 points. In Ohio the share of white working-class voters fell by 15 points between 1988 and 2008 while white college graduates rose by 8 points and minorities by 6 points. Even a state like Mississippi has seen a huge drop in the white working class vote since 1988 (down 21 points).

• Millennials continue to decidedly identify with the Democratic Party. Though we continue to battle the "conventional wisdom" that youth always become more conservative with time, Teixeria corrects this, pointing to multiple studies that show partisan loyalty increases with age. And why would Millennials be attracted to the GOP anyway? In supporting the oppressive Arizona immigration law, continuing to treat gay people as if they are not human, and acting as if government has no redeeming value, it is almost as if the Republican Party is running away from our generation (you know, like Mark Kirk).
• To continue to build a long-term political advantage while championing good policy, the Democrats need to provide an alternative to Arizona's SB 1070, getting behind comprehensive immigration reform. Polling shows that the Arizona legislation is popular, but so is a description of a fairer comprehensive reform, in which the federal government strengthens border security and investigates employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. These undocumented workers currently living in the United States would be required to register with the federal government, have criminal background checks, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for U.S. citizenship (84 percent of those supporting the Arizona law support this alternative). For the Democrats to put forth a strong alternative to the GOP-backed position, they would be strengthening their attachments with already friendly Latino voters, and they also would be enhancing their stature as a party that can solve our larger problems.

The writing is on the wall. Despite the gloomy outlook for the midterms at this point, there are quite a few promising long-term trends for the party. Yet, in order for these to mean anything, we must go all out, institutionalizing peer-to-peer registration efforts. Luckily the DNC recently unleashed their voter registration strategy for the midterms, which significantly targets young voters and minority voters, a large chunk of the President's and the Democrats' base.

And while we face some short-term stress in 2010 while looking at some friendly long-term trends, the GOP is in the opposite situation. While the Tea Party continues to drum up conservative resistance to Obama and the Democrats (occasionally attracting attention for racist behavior), they are moving in the wrong direction of where they need to be to have any influence on the Millennial vote in the long-term. With Millennials forming about 40 percent of the electorate (and 44 percent of the generation identifying as a minority) in 2020, they form the anchor of this country's electoral future; meanwhile, the GOP can't seem to break away from the Tea Party, which actively resists a move toward the center.

For further reading, check out Teixeira's white paper (linked above) and read the reviews by Tom Schaller for FiveThirtyEight.com and Ed Kilgore at the Democratic Strategist.

Over at New Majority, a youth conservative site similar to Future Majority, Rachel Hoff argues that there is an opportunity present for the GOP to make inroads with young voters. All they have to do is stay on message and talk about what young voters want to discuss: jobs and the economy.

And yet, President Obama still gets his strongest support from young Americans, with 60 percent of people under 30 still approving of the job he is doing. But the recent economic and public opinion trends provide a huge opportunity for Republicans to make up some ground with the youngest generation of voters. The GOP’s challenge, however, is to stay on message as they sweet talk young Americans.

[...]

A survey by the Young Republican National Federation at the beginning of this year showed that 23 percent of Young Republicans wanted their party to focus on job creation and the economy. Only 6 percent of these young party activists thought the GOP should focus on social issues. (And social conservatives were well represented in the survey.) For young voters of all social stripes, it seems it is a matter of priorities.

Recession or no recession, young Americans care most about jobs. And if Republicans take advantage of this opportunity to talk competently and confidently about the economy, the party has a chance to break young America’s love affair with Obama and win these voters back to the GOP.

It's great that young conservatives have so much optimism. But here are a couple realities that can't simply be pushed aside:

1.) Young people don't like the GOP. In the most recent Daily Kos/Research 2000 tracking poll, only six percent of 18-29 year olds rate the GOP favorably, while 79 percent favor President Obama. I'm not sure where Hoff's 60 percent figure originates, but youth clearly side and trust Obama on these issues.

2a.) Social issue junkies run the GOP, and they can't kick the habit. Yes, it might be exciting for Republicans to think they can force the breakup between Obama and young voters, but those who might share Hoff's correct view that youth want to talk about the economy are outnumbered by those who celebrate Glenn Beck, Michael Steele, and crazy teabagging parties. God, guns, and gays still consume too much of the GOP's attention for any kind of substantive discussion of quality of life issues to take root. As long as this is the case, young voters aren't seeing red.

2b.) As long as the GOP is talking social issues, youth aren't going to agree with them. The most diverse generation in American history simply does not agree with the GOP's backward-looking views on most social issues.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that legislation proposing to broaden the numbers of young Americans studying overseas has passed the House.

The legislation, which was named after Paul Simon, the late Illinois senator, was passed as a portion of a larger bill covering foreign policy.

The bill would create an independent government entity and would authorize $80-million in grants to individual students, colleges, and nongovernmental institutions that provide study-abroad opportunities. Funds for the new program, however, would have to be approved separately through the appropriations process.

If you have a particularly sharp memory, you'll remember a post I wrote last July that discussed Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) routine obstruction of this and other bipartisan legislation packaged together in an omnibus bill by Sen. Harry Reid. In case you don't, here's part of what I wrote:

One of the 35 pieces of legislation that was held hostage in the Republican-led procedural circus was The Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, named for the late Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL). This legislation heavily consulted a report from the Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program. This commission evaluated the state of study abroad programs in the United States. The report found that certain demographics, such as low-income students, students with a minority background, and math and science students, had difficulty studying abroad. It also noticed that students mostly studied in Western European countries. The Simon Act sought to increase the number of American students studying abroad from 225,000 to 1 million, especially among the aforementioned groups, and promote other, less popular locations to students.

Like I noted in last year's post, study abroad programs have enjoyed immense popularity on American campuses since 9/11. Already an intensely multicultural generation, the Millennials who were politically tuned in at that time observed a politician holding hostage a program strongly reflecting Millennial values for his own ideological gain. The message was clear: pragmatism [Millennials] be damned.

Markos at Daily Kos wrote a post yesterday that touched on the GOP's misunderstanding of Millennials' values and priorities. I found one portion particularly striking.

Hence, the GOP is hopelessly out of touch with this generation. Its hostility toward the "alternate" -- whether race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality or whatnot, makes them look mean spirited and out of touch. Their overt anger at the notion of a global community, such as the "citizen of the world" thing that Reagan once championed but is now the subject of Newt Gingrich's ire, seems anachronistic to kids used to directly interacting with people all over the world. And while these youngsters are group-minded and embrace empathy as a tool of government, the GOP's close-minded rejection of such approaches is a genuine turn off.

Maybe the Republicans simply are too stupid to know they're totally rejecting the Millennial lifestyle. Or maybe they're doing it intentionally. Either way, the GOP obviously hasn't learned anything since Coburn's antics last year. And the data show that it is imperative for the GOP to reverse course and embrace the Millennial worldview if it has any hope of avoiding the fate of the Whigs.

The GOP can start small and use this opportunity presented to them with the study abroad legislation as a re-do. The House once again passed the Paul Simon Study Abroad legislation, and again, it will be sent to the Senate, going first to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here's hoping that this program becomes law, allowing more youth to experience first-hand what the world has to offer.

cross posted on the CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/...

As a Political Science major in college, I have taken several campaigns and elections courses as well as voting behavior seminars. Yet few have helped me with leadership skills as the President of the College Democrats of NY as Taking on the System by Kos. I realize that many of you have read his book I'm sure, but call me a late bloomer if you will, I didnt buy his book until 2 weeks ago, although I was so mesmerized by the reading that i finished it in 2 days. About 2 months ago, I finished reading Netroots Rising, another great read by Lowell Feld which contained many passages from Kos.

I have based much of my leadership off of the ideas I learned from Kos and it has truly helped make a difference here in NY. The blogging community has inspired us to post blog entries every day on liberal blogs such Kos, The Albany Project (NY), Future Majority, and our our website blog. We now average almost 100 hits a day on our blog which is quite an achievement for our once small movement.

From Kos, I learned to go after your enemy and hit em' hard and not to take anything for granted. It was after all, the Drudge report that cracked the Lewinsky scandal and it has been the netroots which has broke many other scandals or released information damaging to Republican candidates. Several of our hardest hitting blog posts bashing the National College Republicans got our enemies' attention, forcing them to respond to our attacks while their very own membership posted comments on their blog agreeing with us.

Kos preaches that there is nothing wrong with being liberal and to refuse to let Republicans frame the debate and not to give in to anything.

Some of our organization's best ideas have come from the netroots like texting the vote and we have been able to give a voice to college students who have historically been apathetic.

The final idea that I love is the notion that we need to get the right Democrats elected into office- ones that will stand up to the hardliners in the conservative base and that will bring the progressive values we need to our country. For too long, American politics have been to the right of center and we need to move that back to the left.

The netroots will lead the way moving into Obama's presidency.

Some reading material for your Saturday evening:

• brownsox from Daily Kos interviewed Ashwin Madia, the Democratic House candidate in Minnesota's Third District, this past Wednesday and has video of it. Madia is a 30 year old Iraqi vet and a lawyer -- another young candidate.
• A story in an Appleton, WI newspaper focusing on local youth involvement this election cycle
• The Nation compares both candidates' policies on national service.
• DNC '08: Pundit playtime?
• Young voters energized the Iowa delegation/were energized themselves at the convention this week.
• What are Boomers reading online?
• A profile of Headcount.
• An explanation of both candidates' views with regard to students and college financial aid.
• Finally, a columnist at the Pensacola News Journal observes the Millennials/Gen Xers are ready to "throw the bums out" -- of both parties.

Update: Here is the documentary shown prior to Obama's acceptance speech. Some powerful stuff -- check it out:

I'm going to be on KRCL RadioActive in Salt Lake City at noon Mountain Time today. The program is scheduled to be an hour long and I'll be on with a number of local youth activist. Should be fun. Tune in if you can. Later tonight I'll be speaking at the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder Colorado at 7:30pm. If you are in the area, come hang out.

The internet knows things:

• John McCain tells Chris Matthews that he will "contest every youth vote" in the general election.
• McJoan at Daily Kos notes that in the deepest of deep red districts in Idaho, young high schoolers are converting to Democrats at dramatic rates.
• The San Francisco Chronicle looks at how the media and the parties are looking to engage young latinos, a large and fast-growing swing vote. Most interesting fact, half of all Latinos in America are under the age of 40.
• Michell Obama survives her appearance on the Colbert Report:

Tonight I'm blogging this week's edition of Kossacks Under 35 (obviously over at Daily Kos). The post will go live around 9pm Eastern and will recap the panel I moderated on Building the Progressive Youth Movement at this year's Yearly Kos Convention. Stop by and give it a recommend.

We're live.

Kossacks Under 35: Building a Progressive Youth Movement

For your afternoon viewing pleasure. And if you've missed it, YouTube is planning to depose both Stewart and Colbert in their case against Viacom.