Washington Post

An Op-Ed published yesterday in the Washington Post got the youth vote story completely wrong.

In addition to conveniently skipping over the last 7 years in youth organizing (the piece skips from 2000 straight to Iowa 2008), it gets a number of facts wrong and mostly traffics in old stereotypes from the 1990s.

I know that Rock the Vote, which bears the brunt of the author's criticism, is preparing a response, and I'm going to be writing a full response as well that addresses the factual errors and omissions in full. In the interest of timely rapid response, though, I just submitted a letter to the editor.

In the meantime, it looks like WireTap is live with the first response.

An op-ed by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post picks up on the shift in evangelical voters that Zack Exley has been following for months now.

Republicans should take note, because they have growing problems among the post-religious-right generation of evangelicals. An analysis by the Pew Research Center found that 55 percent of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 identified themselves as Republican in 2001. By 2007, that figure had dropped to 40 percent. This generation is not turning into liberal Democrats -- it is more pro-life, for example, than an older generation of evangelicals -- but it has become more loosely moored to the GOP.

These trends highlight a simple fact: Many evangelicals are center-right voters who respond to a message of social justice and community values, not only to a message of rugged individualism and unrestricted markets. Over the years, religious conservatives have made common cause with movement conservatives within the Republican Party -- but they are not identical to movement conservatives.

That last paragraph is particularly important. We've let the media take away from the Left any claim to speak for religion or people of faith. It's gotten to the point where pollsters don't even ask Democratic voters whether or not they are evangelicals. But there are many intersections between the teachings of the Church and Democratic policies. Messaging around social justice issues and the common good is a strong way to create inroads and alliances with evangelicals - particularly young evangelicals - and work together to bring about positive change we all want to see on the environment, poverty, and a number of issues.

More on how evangelical youth are abandoning Republicans here.

WaPo's Howard Kurtz discovers that YouTube allows amatuers to post videos remixing campaign ads. Brilliant. Can I get his salary?

In YouTube Clips, A Political Edge:

But the YouTube revolution -- which includes dozens of sites such as Google Video, Revver.com and Metacafe.com -- could turn that on its head.

If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.

"YouTube is a campaign game-changer, shifting the dynamics of how to reach voters and build intimate relationships," says Julie Supan, senior marketing director for the small, California-based firm, which by one measure now runs the 39th most popular Web site. "YouTube levels the playing field, allowing well-backed and less-known candidates to reach the same audience and share the same stage."

To his credit, Kurtz gets it - mostly. For some reason, he seems to think that 5,000 or so viewers demonstrates the power of YouTube to shift the dynamics of campaign media. Doesn't realize that the numbers he's throwing out merely pertain to people who have signed into groups? And that potentially tens of thousands might actually be viewing some of these ads?

I guess Howard Kurtz is the only person in the political world who hasn't heard of JibJab.

While we're on this topic, I'll point you to a post Josh made about this development on his personal blog. Where is the line between a healthy media democracy and "flickring idiocy?" Something to chew on.

On a nostalgic note - oh how I wish YouTube had been around when Jason Woliner was making his Partisan Jab videos for MFA.