Youth Outreach

Yesterday, Kevin wrote a post that carefully and thoroughly proved that Generation Opportunity--at first glance, a non-partisan, non-threatening organization targeting youth to engage in positive change--is a sham.

To summarize, Generation Opportunity created a Facebook page titled "Being American" complete with random, non-descript photographs, encouraging young people to like the page just like they'd like apple pie, and then once it reached about 600,000 likes, they began to introduce their "non-partisan" organization.

I think the thing that strikes me the most about Kevin's post after some reflection is that Generation Opportunity--and by association, conservatives/Republicans--is admitting that it can't attract young people to its movement on its own merits. Basically, this means that The Right acknowledges that it needs to hide in the American flag like a Trojan horse in order to build any momentum among young people.

All the research that supposedly signals a conservative swing within the Millennial generation? It's misleading. And the very act of hiding behind "being American" and the "non-partisan" label to keep young people from knowing what your organization actually advocates points to an admission that youth aren't buying what you're actually selling.

As a reminder, Kevin, in beating back some of Generation Opportunity's claims (that Millennials are big on tax cuts, hate government spending, are American exceptionalists, believe the national debt is the most severe national security concern, and support expanding domestic coal and oil), puts forth the more credible research from Millennial Makeover and Pew; it happens to show a different picture.

Millennials, also to a greater degree than members of older generations, have confidence in the federal government and are more likely to favor a clear, rather than ancillary role for it in American life. A decisive majority (64%) of Millennials disagrees with the statement, 'When the federal government runs something it is usually inefficient and wasteful,' while 58 percent of older generations agree with that harsh appraisal. Millennials are also substantially less likely to believe that the federal government should run only those things that can't be run at the local level (63% vs. 71%).

These more favorable Millennial Generation attitudes toward the federal government are not simply a matter of 'normal' youthful liberalism. Millennials today are far less likely than Gen-Xers were in the late 1980s to believe that the federal government is usually wasteful and inefficient (32% for Millennials, 47% for young Gen-Xers) and that it should do only what can't be done at the local level (63% vs. 76%) (Pew Research Center 2007a).

And when these patriotic Millennials, who like "being American" but predictably don't enjoy having conservative talking points shoved down their throats, begin to resist on that Facebook page, what happens? They are silenced, of course. How American is that?

Before 2004/8, Republicans believed--with some Democrats--that the youth vote didn't exist and wasn't worth worrying about. However, as the first Millennials began to vote for Kerry in 2004, overwhelmingly supported Democrats in their 2006 midterm takeover of Congress, and showed up to the polls en masse in 2008 to vote for Obama, the Right took note and understood the youth vote is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

Instead of pursuing honest, genuine efforts to engage young people in the process and persuade them to think about moving to the right, however, they are apparently embracing cynicism, holding to stances and values that Millennials view as toxic according to the credible research. They hope that if they dress up these views a little bit, throw the American flag, apple pie--hell, maybe even some BBQ, fireworks, and a Main Street parade--at them, Millennials will bite.

What's that saying about pigs and lipstick again?

Jon Huntsman, in campaigning for the Republican nomination for the presidency, is encountering a rough reality five months removed from the New Hampshire primary: voters don't know who he is. And if general voters don't know who he is, I'm guessing young voters aren't well aware of the former governor-turned presidential candidate either.

While Huntsman has some work to do with the general electorate, And maybe some his daughters are attempting to do their part in reaching out to young voters through Twitter.

On July 28, Huntsman's three oldest daughters started their own Twitter account. At the outset, the Twitter account was created based on the daughters' desire to share where they are and what they are doing with friends. But then they thought about other uses.

Abby Huntsman, 25, said she and her sisters came up with the idea on their own as a way to keep friends informed.

'All our friends are like, "Where are you? You’re always in different places and doing interesting things!"

'And we thought, "This is a great way to reach out to, not only our friends, but to the youth and to anybody interested in following the campaign",' she said.

[...]

Abby Huntsman said she’s not sure what role the @Jon2012girls account will play in the upcoming election, but she believes she and her sisters have a basic duty to their dad.

'I think our involvement is pretty simple. It’s just getting out there, getting people excited and getting them to know a little bit about my dad,' she said.

I'm not one to knock efforts to appeal to young voters or engage in social media, so kudos to the Huntsmans.

However, I think we need to remember that technology in 2008 campaigns and technology in 2012 campaigns are entirely different phenomena. So while simply "getting a Twitter or Facebook" might have been able to pass as some kind of appeal to youth in 2008 (even that is highly doubtful), doing that alone definitely won't work in 2012.

If the Huntsman daughters legitimately want to appeal to young voters, maybe they need to tell their dad to campaign and advocate for true pro-growth policies, strategies that create jobs and increase government revenues. That's what we want and need. That he definitely wouldn't get out of the GOP primary after spreading this message shows you just how far the Republican Party is from young voters' priorities.

Matt Bai's piece in the New York Times Magazine chronicles the emerging tensions between the White House and the Congress as they strategize for the 2010 mid-terms. Within the piece, Bai discusses the generational dynamic at play as the DNC (what is now the Obama-backed OFA) is pushing congressional candidates (against their wills) to make their pitches to voters normally perceived as unreliable.

...The lesson that Plouffe and his operation took away from the dismal 2009 elections is that Obama can act like a matchmaker of sorts, introducing the party’s candidates to new voters and vouching for their intentions, but it’s only going to matter if the candidates themselves embrace the so-called new politics. What that means, practically speaking, is that the White House is urging candidates to divert a fair amount of their time and money — traditionally used for buying TV ads and rallying core constituencies — to courting volunteers and voters who haven’t generally been reliable Democrats.

This is not what members of Congress or their campaign managers are trained to do, and it has created something of a cultural chasm between the White House and the party apparatus. There is a strong generational component here. With some exceptions, Obama’s passion for organizing finds more enthusiasm among candidates closer to the president’s age and newer to politics (candidates like Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado), while older Democrats have a harder time imagining that a bunch of volunteers and a dozen virtual town-hall meetings are going to matter more than labor endorsements and some killer 30-second spots...

[...]

By Democratic Party standards, this is a relatively muted internal disagreement. But it nonetheless points to the emergence of rival schools of thought within the party when it comes to Obama’s importance as a party leader. Some see him as having transformed both the electorate and the nature of campaigning in what could be a lasting and fundamental way, meaning that things are possible now — both in terms of liberal governance and winning elections — that did not seem possible before. Others view 2008 mostly as a cathartic election that had more to do with conditions in the country than with Obama’s peculiar magic, and they don’t think the party should assume that there are millions of new voters out there who can be tapped if you just knock on the right doors. These two worldviews coexist uneasily among the party’s elected officials and candidates, young and old, in every part of the country — sometimes just hours apart.

The congressional camp within the Democratic Party reflects the status quo that continues to claim that new voters -- including young voters -- don't vote and are apathetic. What they refuse to understand is that we are civically active; we do vote when we are genuinely engaged in a conversation about issues through a medium relevant to our lifestyles. These labor endorsements and "killer" television ads are almost as boring as network news these days. Instead, we should be investing in the peer-to-peer voting drives and organizing work that have already increased the youth vote for three straight elections. From Mike Connery's Journalist Cheat Sheet:

Tip #5: If you insist on reporting the same old story that young people vote at a lower rate than the rest of the electorate, then you have an obligation to also inform your readers/viewers/listeners that youth turnout has increased for 3 years straight, and is at its highest level in over a decade. You also have an obligation to note that in 2006 the youth vote swung a number of important federal races, including pushing Democratic candidates Jon Tester, Jim Webb, and Joe Courtney over the top.

Source: Historical voting patterns (pdf), Impact on Races (pdf), Midterm Turnout (pdf).

Tip #6: If you are going to report on low-turnout among young voters, you also have an obligation to note that young people face more barriers to voting than do older voters. We move more frequently, requiring us to re-register sometimes on a yearly basis, on campus we face a lack of voting machines and long lines, and many university towns actively discourage and try to prevent students from voting.

Source: League of Conservation Voters Education Fund

Tip #7: There are simple fixes to the problems outlined in #6 – election day and same-day registration and mail-in voting are two such fixes that can be applied at the state level. These have been proven to bump youth turnout by as much as 14%!!!!! It would be nice if you reported on them occasionally.

Source: CIRCLE

Tip #8: Young voters will participate if they are asked to, particularly by a peer. This is proven. But the system stopped asking long ago by removing resources and manpower away from young voter outreach. Only in recent years have organizations – and a few campaigns – begin to reengage young voters in any serious way. The result is three straight years in which youth turnout increased. In plain terms: young voters are not apathetic. Rather, the system fails to engage them in any meaningful way.

Source: Young Voter Strategies, Voter Mobilization Tactics

Tip #9: Stop reporting on “celebrity activism” as the Rosetta Stone for understanding the youth vote. This is a Boomer and Gen-X construction created for a broadcast TV culture of the 80s and 90s. Today’s young voters are interested in peer-to-peer communication and networked action. From Facebook to on the ground, peer to peer organizing at club, bars, barbershops and apartment canvassing, the most effective, and sustainable developments in youth organizing in the past five years have come from new, grassroots organizations doing peer to peer organizing on the ground or online. Stop reporting on celebrities and start doing the work of talking to and reporting on the activities of these organizations. Good places to start include:

Forward Montana, The Oregon Bus Project, New Era Colorado, Young Democrats of America, and The League of Young Voters.

There are many more, but let’s do this in baby steps. Start with these and we’ll work out way deeper into youth organizing together.

Young voters can be courted; it just takes some courage and genuine effort. The Speaker's office and legislators like Congressman George Miller (D-CA) have been great on youth policy issues, but in purely electoral terms, the Congressional campaign plan outlined above is disappointing. While OFA doesn't have a pristine record with young voters, they apparently get it more than many of the old guard congressmen and congresswomen.

UPDATE: An example of Congress not understanding youth priorities or youth culture today? Ike Skelton, a longtime Democratic congressman, provides one:

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday that he thought the military should keep its ban on openly gay service members in part because he did not want to open a national discussion about homosexuality. The chairman, Representative Ike Skelton, a conservative Missouri Democrat, said he thought the debate in Congress over the proposed repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy might force families to explain homosexuality to their children. “What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?” Mr. Skelton asked reporters at a news media breakfast.

In what is some bad news for the Democratic candidates in November's midterm elections, young people simply aren't that excited to vote.

According to Gallup daily tracking poll data from March 1 - March 7, 18-29 year olds were the age group with the highest lack of enthusiasm toward voting, with 44 percent of respondents noting that they were "not enthusiastic" about voting in 2010.

One potential problem for Democrats is the lower enthusiasm about voting among young Americans. Twenty percent of registered voters aged 18 to 29 say they are very enthusiastic about voting this November. That compares with 31% to 39% of older age groups who are very enthusiastic.

Younger Americans are decidedly more Democratic than the national average. Thus, their apparent lack of motivation to vote -- if it continues until Election Day -- could deprive Democrats of the full benefit they could in theory derive if all 18- to 29-year-olds were to vote.

Democrats need to knock this number down quickly if they want to have anything resembling success this November. One way of doing that would be to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation. Young people want to see their politics made up of officeholders who are strong, problem-solving leaders, instead of weak, timid politicians.

While David Plouffe and Barack Obama drew praise with his outside-the-box approach in the 2008 election, including the amazing mobilization of thousands of new young voters, 2010 will be a different story for Democrats across the country unless something significantly changes. While it is only March, this is still very disappointing.

UPDATE: From Political Wire:

A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18 to 29 year-olds finds young Republicans are showing more enthusiasm than young Democrats for participating in the upcoming midterm elections with 41% of Republicans planning on voting, compared to 35% of Democrats and 13% of Independents.

A Pew Research poll released this week showed that Democrats may be losing their grip on Millennials.

The Democratic advantage over the Republicans in party affiliation among young voters, including those who "lean" to a party, reached a whopping 62% to 30% margin in 2008. But by the end of 2009 this 32-point margin had shrunk to just 14 points: 54% Democrat, 40% Republican.

Cue the pundits - even those young Obamaphiles are realizing the dangers of liberalism, right? While some local outlets are probably lazily reporting it this way, we're actually seeing quite the opposite.

Pew's research still shows a heavy tilt toward many liberal stances among Millennial respondents, particularly in the areas of expansion of government responsibility, favoring gay marriage, and resisting the continued military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Futhermore, Millennials are the only generation in the study to have more respondents identify as "liberal" then "conservative." 29 percent identified themselves as "liberal" while 27 percent identified as conservatives.

(We know that the whole notion that youth are liberal until they grow older is, to borrow the British term, poppycock. Research shows that when youth vote for a certain party or form certain political ideologies when they come of age, they tend to keep that voting behavior/ideology over time, despite what many people might think.)

With all this taken into account, young voters are growing disenchanted with the Democratic Party because right now it represents politics as usual. It's not because we fear Democratic liberalism; it's the opposite -- we want more of it! To get it, we need our senators and representatives to find some fortitude somewhere and get moving. The public option resurgence is something to rally around, but it faces formidable challenges in Congress, one of those being Democratic skittishness given the party's lackluster performances in the VA and NJ gubernatorial elections and the special election in Massachusetts.

The bottom line is that as long as Democratic representation in Congress follows a centrist line, it will not be representing the interests and values of the Millennials, leaving more Democratic defections among the demographic likely. 2010 is too important for that.

As the campaign to ensure a complete and accurate count of every American in this year’s census gets off the ground, a new survey of American attitudes toward participating in the census shows that young Americans, members of the Millennial Generation, born 1982-2003, may prove least likely to stand up and be counted. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that roughly one-third of 18-29 year olds hadn’t heard of the census, and even after having the process described to them, 17 percent were still unaware of just what the census involved. This lack of knowledge translated directly into this key demographic segment’s unwillingness to participate, with only 36 percent of 18-29 year olds indicating that they “definitely” would respond to the form when it arrives, compared to large majorities in all other age segments who said they would do so.

The Census Bureau has a plan to address this lack of knowledge, but it’s not clear yet if its approach will successfully reach, let alone motivate, this generation. This month the Bureau launched the first ad about the census as part of an overall $340 million public awareness campaign, $133 million of which will be spent on television advertising.

The new ad features one of Hollywood’s best-known environmentalists, Ed Begley, Jr. in another of his satirical roles portraying a clueless corporate executive. In the Census Bureau ads he plays a Hollywood director pitching the idea of taking a literal snapshot of everyone in American all at once, even as others in the spot point out that the Census Bureau already has a plan to “get the shot.” All the actors in this humorous spot are white Baby Boomers, two generations older than Millennials and not exactly the demographic most needing to be educated about the census. Maybe even more serious, broadcast television is not the Millennials’ favorite way to absorb information.

More promising is the allocation of much of the rest of the awareness campaign’s budget for social networking and appearances at major crowd events like the Super Bowl and Daytona 500. In addition, information on the need to respond to the census will be translated into 27 different languages, which will help with the very multi-ethnic Millennial generation as well as Latinos and Asian of all ages. Still, the campaign needs to go beyond awareness if it wants to convince Millennials to participate.

Those who know what the census is used for, and that participation is required by law, are much more likely to say they will definitely participate. But the survey found that only 15 percent of Millennials knew that the law requires their participation. Only about half knew that the final count will be used to allocate government money to their community and determine its level of representation in Congress. They also represented the smallest group to know that the census will not be used to locate illegal immigrants. Millennials are more than willing to participate in civic activities and follow social rules, but right now they are dangerously uninformed about why they need to be a part of the nation’s most important decennial civic undertaking.

Millennials continually share information with each other to reach a group consensus on what they should do next. Someone other than those with strictly Boomer sensibilities needs to engage the generation in a conversation about the census. If that happens, America will have gone a long way toward ensuring a complete and accurate snapshot of its increasingly diverse, and youthful, population.

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008), named one of the 10 favorite books by the New York Times in 2008. Crossposted from New Geography

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CIRCLE has numbers about yesterday's vote in the special election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts.

According to the briefing:

"Tisch College, Medford/Somerville, Mass - In the special election for Massachusetts Senator, young voters (age 18-29) preferred Democrat Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown by 58%-40% (with 2% for other candidates), according to a survey of 1,000 voters conducted on January 19, by Rasmussen Reports.

About 15% of Massachusetts citizens between the ages of 18-29 turned out to vote.* For citizens age 30 and older, turnout was about 57%.

For comparison: 25% of young citizens (age 18-29) voted in the 2008 Massachusetts presidential primaries, and 47.8% of young Massachusetts citizens voted in the 2008 presidential elections, according to CIRCLE’s analysis. Seventy-eight percent of under-30 voters in Massachusetts chose Barack Obama in the 2008 general election; 20% chose John McCain."

Part of me is angry that we lost this seat to someone who doesn't support the youth agenda, but the major part of me is that young people obviously supported Coakley but there was - according to one political insider - "zero" outreach from the Coakley campaign to young voters.

This didn't need to happen.

As one person reminded me - Massachusetts is a state with one of the largest student populations in the country. It is an embarrassment that there was such a huge resource available to the Coakley camp but it was cast aside.

I just did a Skype interview with the Millennials Changing America blog that is done by Mike Hais and Morley Winograd, authors of Millennial Makeover. I was asked by Alex what the biggest failures I've seen both from the White House and from Congress are and my response was that its been a total lack of outreach on their part to young people around meaningful policy initiatives.

Young people continue to be the largest supporters for the President, they continue to be the largest supporters for meaningful Health Care Reform, but not once did the White House or Congress reach out to youth leaders and say "What can we do to bring you into this debate?"

It begs the question - is the Democratic Party abandoning young people despite young people being their base of support?

UPDATE: This is interesting. I just got an email from a field organizer who said that many of the folks from a nearby state who were working on the ground moved over to Coakley's campaign to help. They specifically told the DSCC that they thought it might be helpful to mobilize around UMASS Amherst who were coming back to school this week. DSCC said - great we'll have our youth person give you a call - no one ever did. (Turns out... there is no youth person)

UPDATE 2: The Cook Report's @Dave_Wasserman has been tweeting about district breakdowns for results. Holyoke, MA (which is home to all-girls Mount Holyoke College and right in the middle of the cluster UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and Smith) also failed to turn out the vote. As a friend who pointed this out said - The fact that two of those schools are all-girls and politically active, and Coakley didn't mobilize them, is shameful.

This morning I got an email from myImpact.org announcing that they'd received support from the Peterson Foundation and Mobilize.org for a social media project they intend to do. This was announced at the Mobilize.org event "Exploring the Millennial Generation’s Return on Investment" a conference announced earlier this year when Mobilize announced their $1million grant from the Peterson Foundation.

William Greider wrote in The Nation earlier this year about the Looting of Social Security, describing very specifically the plan among Wall Street and Banking elites who are pushing the idea of fiscal responsibility as part of policy. Fiscal responsibility is a well tested phrase that everyone can get behind - because everyone agrees that our country should be responsible with its money. . . but Greider says that this is a backdoor swindle on anyone who has paid into Social Security

"These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud."

His piece is extensive, and outlines the ways in which the rich want to use funding for Social Security to cut taxes to corporations and upper-income wage earners and a huge tax increase imposed on working people that he says is similar to the 1983 tax

"the payroll tax rate supporting Social Security--the weekly FICA deduction--was raised substantially, supposedly to create a nest egg for when the baby boom generation reached retirement age."

There is a kindred spirit in young people with this message, because since the 1980's the Millennial Generation has heard a consistent message about Social Security being too small to support the Baby Boomer Generation. Most young people don't think it will be there for them (Disclaimer: It will be), so this is a great group of people to begin organizing around "entitlement reform" to unmake Social Security and bait the young against the old to screw us all.

The article received a response from the Peterson Foundation itself directly targeting the idea of "entitlements" and "fiscal responsibility." But, Greider responded to the letter saying

"if you read his letter closely, he more or less confirms what I wrote about the establishment's assault on Social Security and other entitlement programs.

"I said they want to loot Social Security. He says it's already been looted. I said they are trying to evade the regular processes of representative democracy. He says Congress is "broken" and so cannot be trusted to make sound decisions in a timely manner."

Mobilize prides itself in being an "all partisan" organization, rather than a non-partisan organization which is what many youth groups are. When they promote progressive values I personally celebrate it, when they promote right-wing ideas, I will not. I had no idea that myImpact.org was also aligned with this kind of ideology, and I was so disappointed to receive the email from them this morning celebrating the Peterson Foundation's involvement, and accepting donations from them.

But this is the second problem, there's no funding for the youth movement. If you've read Mike Connery's book Youth to Power then you've read about the major donors that invested 5-10 years ago, respectively, in progressive youth outreach, young voters, and organizations that promote the civic participation and dedication of the Millennial Generation.

I'm sad to say that those donors have almost entirely dried up. Many are funding different projects, some have gone more partisan, some have gone less partisan only funding organizations that do voter registration and civic engagement but not issues, and others have simply stopped giving either because of the economic recession or a lack of interest.

The result is a ton of youth organizations doing groundbreaking work in states and across the country that can't get funded or whose budgets have been slashed so considerably that the outreach has suffered. The funders that are still active in the youth movement, those rare loyal leaders, are so few that we as a community are wrestling over any dime we can get.

So when there is a major foundation like Peterson willing to bankroll the entire organization with a $1million check, an organization must choose whether or not to sell their soul to keep the doors open.

This will continue to be the standard until we as a progressive movement decide to invest in our future. Right wing groups specifically invest in their youth with leadership training, job placement, think takes, and candidate recruitment. Connery wrote on Talking Points Memo last year about the trend beginning in the 1970's when the

"Young America’s Foundation, the most well-funded conservative youth group, with an average annual budget of around $9 million, was revitalized, and new organizations like Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, which has trained upwards of 50,000 conservative activists on an average annual budget of $7 million, were getting their start.

Within the Republican Party itself, the College Republicans also experienced a revitalization at this time. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of College Republican chapters climbed from a nadir of 250 during the Johnson administration to over 1,100 by the time Reagan was in office.

By 2003, there were over a dozen leadership and training nonprofits in the conservative youth movement, and they receive upwards of $48 million a year in funding from 75 different conservative foundations. More importantly, their was not cyclical (ie election-based), but steady, providing a measure of stability on which to build and sustain their operations for years. Together, these organizations train hundreds if not thousands of conservatives a year, almost the entire cost of which is subsidized for the trainees."

I'll say it again, if we don't invest in our future today, there won't be a future to invest in, and more and more youth groups will be forced to accept compromising donations from conservative groups looking to creatively make inroads to the progressive movement. Social Security will be just the beginning of the end.

Another great video from orgs who are working to get young people to work on the upcoming legislation on climate change. Its part of the Sierra Club's 2Dirty4College campaign.

On the heals of the Young Invincibles conference and on the morning of the Better Deal conference, Politico has a bright shiny piece about young voters for the Virginia and New Jersey races coming up in the next month.

Democrats, it seems, are concerned about young people who are characteristically less unexuberant about these upcoming elections. They remark that this could mean a bad election for those candidates hoping to "ride the wave" of an Obama victory from last November.

"A robust youth turnout could potentially turn the tide for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds (pictured above) and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Corzine is only 1 percentage point behind Republican Chris Christie, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey, and Rasmussen Reports labels Deeds as trailing opponent Bob McDonnell by 7 points. Both men have unleashed a college campus blitz in recent weeks, hoping student voters will give them the bump they need to inch past their opponents.

Young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Obama in Virginia and New Jersey by 60 percent and 67 percent, respectively. Obama carried New Jersey by a whopping 15 points and became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry Virginia.

In New Jersey, about 377,000 of the 560,000 young voters who showed up at the polls supported Obama. In Virginia, about 373,000 out of 621,000 young voters backed Obama.

But some young Democrats say that energy surge has begun to dissipate and student political involvement for the 2009 races has returned to normal — before the Obama phenomenon seemed to transfix young voters."

What is "normal"? Do they mean inactive? And what does that tell people who don't do the proper outreach to the youth community for an election? How many millions of dollars did the Obama campaign spend on youth outreach, online outreach, and peer to peer contact?? Is the ratio comparable when looking at the state races in NJ and VA? If not - I believe they will indeed see the decrease in "enthusiasm" they estimate. Which will ultimately perpetuate the stereotype that "young people only came out for Obama."

I've said it before... I'll say it again... if you build it... they will come. If you ask them, they will vote. If you do the outreach you'll reap the rewards.