maps

I'm leaving to catch a train down to DC in about an hour. I'm going to try to do some number crunching on the train. If that works out, I might have something interesting to report Thursday morning. Otherwise, I've got meetings tonight and all day tomorrow, so posting may be light depending on how much down-time I get.

• Nate Silver has some excellent data on how young voters - of all races - drove the opposition to Prop 8 in California. While we are all disappointed at the moment, that bodes well for the future. (h/t Jesse Singal)
• The University of Michigan College Democrats didn't like my post about the Dingell/Waxman fight, however their opposition seems based more on blind loyalty to Dingell than on the merits of my argument.
• In the NY Daily News, Gen-We authors Eric Greenberg and Karl Weber talk about what young voters will expect from an Obama administration.
• This is a little old and I can't believe I missed it. Columnist E.J. Dionne swipes our brand and writes a column about Obama and the Future Majority:
  

  Since the Nixon era, conservatives have claimed to speak for the "silent majority." Obama represents the future majority. It is the majority of a dynamic country increasingly at ease with its diversity. It reflects the forward-looking optimism of the young. It draws in new suburban and exurban voters whose priorities are resolutely practical -- jobs, schools and transportation -- and who dislike angry quarrels about gay marriage, abortion and religious orthodoxy.

• NPR's Farai Chideya says America's youth vote grows up, wields power.
• Slate has a great article about the potential and pitfalls of transitioning Obama's participatory, tech-driven campaign into a new era of participatory governance.
• King Politics provides us with a more nuanced view of the 2008 "youth only" electoral map:

(NOTE: Originally published Nov 5th, 2004 on musicforamerica.org.)
It's official, the "kids didn't show up" spin is bull:

Despite long lines and registration snafus, voters under age 30 clocked the highest turnout percentage since 1972. The good news is that America's young people are more engaged in politics than at any time in two generations. Aging cynics have been quick to blame the kids for a host of political lapses, but the cynics have it wrong.

What's more, in battleground states -- where MfA and a host of others did the bulk of their work -- turnout was above 60%, and broke for Kerry by an average of almost 20 points.

Florida? Ours.
Ohio? Ours.
Colorado? Ours.
Virgina? Missouri? Arkansas? Ours.

Our generation did it's part and then some, and most of us will stick with it. Our choice was Kerry by a landslide. The future belongs to us, not the moral minority. Some in the media don't quite get it. If you see people bitch about our performance, send a letter to the editor to set the record straight. We should all be damn proud of what we've accomplished.

I posted this over on the Daily Kos, probably the highest-traffic liberal blog on the planet. It got to the front page and there are more than 300 comments. See what people are saying.

Here's what the electoral vote map looks like for our people. Read it and weep, Karl: