Youth Vote

Guess what? John McCain is old, doesn't understand (but is aware of) the internet, and has little to no appeal to young voters. Latinos don't admire him for his stand on immigration, and despite being a veteran, the military thinks he's not concerned enough with the real needs of the troops. But don't take it from me:

• PEW Hispanic Center reports that McCain is losing the Latino youth vote (25% of the Latino population) 73 - 16%.
• Army Times smacked him down for suggesting that we ration health care for Veterans.
• CNN reports that McCain is having trouble connecting to young voters, and young Republicans agree.
• The Boston Globe says McCain is internet-illiterate.
• Even Perez Hilton agrees.

McCain campaign response:

The McCain campaign said it plans to increase the senator's presence on sites such as Facebook and MySpace in addition to the candidate making appearance on shows that appeal to younger viewers -- such as "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and the "Late Show With David Letterman."

Newsflash. John McCain has been on the Daily Show more than any other politician, he has a Facebook page, and he was on Saturday Night Live recently. It's not that he doesn't have a presence in these venues already. It's that no one cares because he is wrong on the issues.

Bumped. --Mike

I just read Keli Goff's column on The Huffington Post called "McCain's Perez Hilton Problem". While its a fine read (repudiating John McCain's statement that he doesn't support "gay adoption", defending the notion that LGBT people can provide excellent, loving homes for children), I was a little confused at why she references, specifically, Perez Hilton (who like may other people were outraged by this admission from the presumptive Republican nominee). I thought, from reading the first few lines, she was going to argue that sites like Perez Hilton ("What Would Tyler Durden Do?", "D-Listed", the 'Gawker' sites, etc.) provide a unique opportunity to foment action against regressive policies, causes & candidates among possibly apolitical youth who may have sympathy for progressive programmes. Goff didn't end up arguing that, so I will.

Goff wrote:

"On Sunday, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) selected McCain's statement on the matter as his "Quote of the Day." The quote simply reads, "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption." At last count Hilton's post garnered around 700 comments, some of which are blatantly homophobic, (which is ironic considering Lavandeira himself is openly gay, which begs the question: if you disapprove of gay people so much why are you visiting a blog run by one?). But for the most part, the comments -- many of which are too colorful to print here -- highlight a fundamental problem for John McCain as he tries to formulate a winning strategy for November: How to win an election decided by voters in the middle, while continuing to pander to voters on the right."

Goff is right is that McCain's previous (though probably overblown) image as a moderate &/or maverick, which attracted moderate Independents & conservative Democrats in the past, is a liability as he tries to sew up the conservative Republican base ... It's a catch-22, because the more he panders to the base, the more he losses the moderates, & vice versa.

But I digress.

Election coverage can be framed in many different ways, & increasingly we've seen the pop-culture-ization of this process, especially with the Obama candidacy, which has spawned a popular movement of young people who may have sat this one out, or simply not cared, if Dick Gephardt was running. (No offense to Dick; he's like number 3 on my list of potential Vice Presidents.) Barack's candidacy has inspired political youth, as well as those who have never been interested in politics before.

& The Obama Team, to an extent, gets this. On example: just look at the Michelle Obama PR-blitz after Barack became the nominee ... co-hosting "The View", making the cover of "US Weekly" ... In other words, reaching out to young women who are probably pro-choice, probably who have a gaggle of gay friends, & could be moved to vote if they feel the candidate (or, in this case, his wife) speaks to them on level other than health care policy positions, discussions of Iraq & banking reform.

The power of celebrity gossip rags, whether in print (US Weekly), on TV (TMZ on Fox) or online, like the aforementioned blogs, when they comment on the political matters, can be enormous. Celebrity gossip is an ascendant medium, drawing huge audiences of mostly young people, who tend to be, at least on social & cultural issues, more liberal. Comment on McCain saying he's against "gay adoption" & there's a good chance you may energize a liberal, though apolitical, young person who reads your blog to say, "Geez, maybe I'll vote for Obama ... This guy is straight-up creepy ..."

That's where I thought Goff was going ... I hope I adequately took you there.

Bumped - Kevin

Crossposted at Politics of the Common Good.

On pushback, Lee Fang posted a transcript of an interesting interview taking place on CNN. The guest was Ben Ferguson, a 27 year old right-winger. Fang describes him as "the media's go-to guy for all matters relating to young people and conservative politics." Of course, Fang also points out Ben's credentials: "He abhors MTV and popular youth culture, is a proud virgin, and routinely mocks progressive causes through his nationally syndicated talk-show and newspaper column." Let's take a look:

FOREMAN: Ben, let me ask you this question then. If you’re a young conservative and you’d like more people to support McCain, presumably, what does John McCain do at his age to reach across that gap because truly there are so many young people who I run into who say, I respect him, he’s a great guy, he’s wonderful. But he’s so different than me.

FERGUSON: I’ll be honest with you, if I’m advising John McCain right now, I would tell him to not inspire young people to come out and vote because for every one he turns out to vote for him, he’ll end up inspiring two or three other people to come out and vote for Barack Obama.

FOREMAN: Let’s not get out the youth vote movement?

FERGUSON: Yes, if you’re John McCain, I wouldn’t want to inspire young people. That’s going to get that movement vote to kick your tail. And that’s the last thing he needs to do.

Emphasis added. Well, first -- it's a good thing Ferguson is only a talk show host, because that advice is deplorable.

But let's assume Ferguson's contention that McCain should stay away from inspiring young people for fear of actually pushing more toward Obama is true (which, it very well may be). And let's bring in what we know about the connections between a healthy democracy and engaged young voters:

A healthy democracy requires that people learn, listen, dream, and work together as they unleash their collective potential to build the common good. When young people are excluded from participation in this dynamic, the potential for common good is deeply diminished. Despite a common misperception of today’s youth as self-absorbed and uninvolved, in example after example, young people ages 15 to 25 demonstrate a strong desire to engage actively in the work of building a just national and global society. This high degree of youth involvement not only develops leadership and civic skills in young people, but also adds much needed energy and perspective into community change efforts, policy debates, and governance at all levels.

With all of this in mind, isn't Ferguson's proposal indicating that a victory by McCain might not be the best thing for a democracy? My political sympathies aside, that's what I'm thinking when I read the transcript of Ferguson's statement. Choosing not to inspire younger voters goes against everything I have been taught to believe about the democratic process.

Granted, Ferguson does not play a role in the McCain campaign. But an appraisal of his campaign keeps me from thinking that McCain isn't taking some of Ferguson's advice. We know McCain exerts great energy trying to figure out the Internet, which is where young people are increasingly getting their news and information about the campaign. We know he's not put forth any plan for national service outside of the military (young voters are service all-stars). We know he's not exactly forthcoming with plans for higher education, a hallmark issue for today's youngest voters. While it's probably not that groundbreaking for many readers of Future Majority and my own blog, it would appear that McCain does indeed have a "youthiness" problem.

One more thing about Ferguson, though. When pushback's Lee Fang quoted the transcript, he cut out one of the most annoying and grating things for me to hear or read from any political observer -- something that immediately erases any ounce of credibility they may have had with me.

FERGUSON: There were more young people that voted but it was the same percentage of the overall vote because overall, more people voted in the last election than the one before it. So I don't know if they're necessarily going to show up. They thought they were going to show up for John Kerry and they didn't.

The young people, do they have an opinion? Yes. Does that mean they're going to go vote? I don't think so.

Ben Ferguson, meet Michael Connery:

Turnout vs. Share: There's a sub-theme to be aware of here as well. There are two ways of measuring how a demographic performs during an election. These are turnout and share of the electorate, and the media has a hard time distinguishing between the two. Turnout means the hard number of people participating. In the IADP data above, 4,836 18-24 year olds caucused. That's the hard turnout number for that age demographic. You'll also notice that the data states that 18-24 year olds made up 3.9% of caucus goers in 2004. That's the share of the electorate for that age demographic. These two numbers can present very different pictures of demographic performance. The 2004 general election provides us with an excellent example.

In 2000, 18-29 year olds made up 17% of the electorate. That was their share of the electorate. In 2004, 18-29 year olds once again comprised 17% of the electorate. The "logical" conclusion is that the youth vote did not increase, and that was what the media reported on November 5th, 2004. Of course, this was wrong. If one examined the actual turnout numbers, it quickly became apparent that there was a huge increase in youth participation. In fact, 4.3 million more 18-29 year olds turned out in 2004 than did in 2000. That increase didn't appear in the share of the electorate data because turnout increased among all age demographics. In order to get a sense of what happened with young voters this year, we'll need to examine not only their share of the electorate, but also the hard turnout numbers. The media missed this in 2004, and the campaigns and youth advocates will all be checking this data to make sure that the campaigns and press don't make the same mistakes twice.

Ferguson can't distinguish between share and turnout. Just because many other people turned out to vote in 2004 outside of the 18-29 age bracket does not mean those aged 18-29 should be criticized and believed to be a disappointment yet again. The truth that Ferguson and other ignorant political observers want to ignore is that there is a trend toward increased voting among youth (which I think is related to Ferguson and McCain's avoidance of this demographic).

So what does all of this mean?

1.) Ben Ferguson might just have a career in the "vast right wing conspiracy," given his ability to repeat untruths and act like he knows what he's talking about.

2.) John McCain, if he is pursuing a "youth avoidance" strategy like it currently appears, would ostensibly be running counter to healthy democratic values.

It's been a while since we've posted any polling data on the site. In part, that's because the primaries are over and in part because so few polling outfits conduct good polls focusing on young voters.

I don't know about you, but it's left me jonesing for some good polling data. So I thought I'd pass along this recent poll from Quinnipiac, which spotlights the role young voters are playing in keeping Sen. Obama ahead of John McCain (emphasis mine):

With commanding leads among women and young voters and near unanimous support from black voters, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has a 50 - 41 percent lead over Arizona Sen. John McCain, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of likely voters released today.

Independent voters split 44 - 44 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Sen. McCain has a slight 47 - 44 percent edge among men voters and a larger 49 - 42 percent lead among white voters.

But black voters back Sen. Obama 94 - 1 percent, while women support him 55 - 36 percent. Obama leads 63 - 31 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old and 48 - 44 percent among voters 35 to 54, while voters over 55 split with 45 percent for McCain and 44 percent for Obama.

Note to the women running the Glamocracy blog: You have no idea what you are writing about.

I'm sorry to read that you're "sick of hearing about the youth vote." Since it's your job to write about politics for young women, that seems like a bit of a conundrum for you. Try not to think too hard about it; your head might explode. In the meantime, please do not demean young voters or the incredible accomplishment that is the dramatic rise in youth participation in this election cycle.

Yes, it pains me too when the media - of which you are a part - talks about Heidi's love of John McCain, or when an aging reporter talks about Rockin' the Vote. But Rock the Vote and P. Diddy are not the whole story of the youth vote. Neither are Lauren and Heidi, no matter how many Declare Yourself events they attend or PSAs they record.

Contrary to popular belief, the youth vote did not emerge sui generis from Barack Obama's winning combination of good looks and hope. A lot of people you've never heard of, people who have never met P. Diddy or Madonna, have worked hard for years to bring the youth vote to where it is today. You have no idea how long and how hard they worked, and what an accomplishment it is that the media now portrays young voters in a positive light. Your flip attitude demeans them and their work.

Get a clue about what you are writing about.

Update: Kay Steiger has more.

Let the pandering to young voters begin:

Only problem is, young voters don't consider this a voting issue and won't buy it in the face of an alternative argument from the Obama camp. But by all means, Sen. McCain, please keep trashing the social safety net.

Originally posted at The Nation.

A few weeks ago, the Obama campaign caused a stir when it suggested that major progressive donors should abstain from supporting independent organizations outside of the campaign working to influence the election. The implication at the time was that Obama was talking solely about 527 independent media organizations (progressive equivalents of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth), but if taken to its logical conclusion, these statements could apply to any number of electorally engaged organizations, including youth institutions that do partisan voter registration and GOTV. This makes me nervous.

In talking with youth organizers, my sense is that there is already far less money on the table for partisan youth GOTV work this cycle than there was at this time in 2004. Obama's phenomenal track record in turning out young voters is one of the dominant media narratives this cycle and I'm worried that donors will take Obama at his word and leave the youth vote work to the campaign. That would be a mistake and I want to lay out a few reasons why that is so:

• Youth Orgs Are Complementary and Boost Turnout Even Higher: Young voters made up the highest share of the electorate in the two states where the campaigns were joined in their GOTV efforts by a strong, independent youth-focused effort. In Iowa, youth were 22% of the electorate, outperforming their share of eligible voters and comprising a higher portion of the electorate than the so-called reliable seniors. In New Hampshire, youth were 18% of the electorate - the second highest share for youth during the primary process, and 43% of all young voters turned out, far and away the highest level of actual turnout among 18 - 29 year olds. In both of these states independent youth organizations like Rock the Vote, the Young Democrats and the Young Voter PAC worked to turnout young voters. Few thought that the primary season would extend beyond these states and most organizations lacked resources or time to organize efficiently elsewhere. That lack of resources was evident in the youth turnout and share of the electorate, which were lower in the other 48 states.
• Obama Needs Help Reaching Non-College Youth: Obama has had great success in exciting the youth vote, but primarily these were college-educated young voters. According to CIRCLE, only 1 in 14 non-college youth voted in a primary or caucus this cycle, compared to 1 in 4 college-educated youth. Organizations like the Young Democrats, The League, and others focus most of their energies off college campuses and in the communities. It is here, in turning out these hard to reach youth, that they can contribute most to Obama's candidacy.
• Youth Organizations Will Increase Turnout for Down-Ballot Races: Presidential cycles are great because they drum up a lot of excitement, but they also tend to induce myopia among the electorate. The latest youth poll from Democracy corps indicates that Sen. Obama is dominating Senator McCain among young voters, but will those young people vote on down ballot races? Or, lacking information on the candidates, will they decline to vote? Will the Obama campaign, with its shiny new 50-state strategy campaign on behalf of down ballot candidates? Maybe, but we don't really know for sure and we dont' know to what extent. As we saw in 2006, supporting partisan youth organizations outside the campaign will ensure that young voters don't just turnout to elect a president, but turnout to elect a whole new wave of Democrats at all levels of government.
• Youth Organizations Do Not Disappear After Election Day: On a similar note, many activists and political operatives are starting to notice that Barack Obama is now in possession of one of the largest lists in progressive politics. It is highly likely he also has the largest youth list in progressive politics. He is marshaling the support of these new political activists to great effect on behalf of his campaign, but will their engagement continue beyond the election? Will the Obama campaign morph into a new, critical piece of progressive infrastructure as Dean for America did when it became Democracy for America? Or will it dissipate like the many campaigns of Ralph Nader or the campaign of John Kerry? What will that mean for the youth vote during the 2010 midterms? Thanks to the work of over a dozen new youth institutions, young voters are trending increasingly Democratic and an infrastructure exists to ensure they stay that way for decades to come. It would be the worst kind of short-term thinking to deprive that infrastructure of vital resources at a time when youth interest is higher than it has been in decades. We should be helping our nascent youth infrastructure capitalize on that excitement, not using it as an excuse to invest resources elsewhere.
• Don't Repeat the Mistakes of the Republicans: There is a precedent for all of this. The Republicans conducted aggressive youth vote outreach in the 1980s and it paid dividends. Young voters routinely chose the GOP candidate (Reagan, Bush Sr.) over their Democratic opponents. But the Republicans became complacent and their courting of young voters became less of a priority in the early 90s, allowing the Democrats to briefly recapture the youth vote. In 2000, youth turnout was essentially a wash, splitting 48 - 46 in favor of Al Gore. It's only in the past three cycles that Democrats have secured a dominant advantage among Millennials. Win or lose, the Obama campaign will not be around forever. Let's not make the same mistakes as the GOP and shoot our highly successful youth infrastructure in the foot when we're barely out of the gate.

One of the greatest challenges that all progressive organizations face is the cyclical nature of progressive funding, which tends to ramp up during election years and dramatically scale back during off-years. This has been doubly true for youth organizations, which only recently began to receive substantial funds to sustain and occasionally expand their work. All of the points I've listed here provide a compelling rationale for donors to continue investing in youth organizing outside the scope of the Obama campaign. No matter how successful the Obama campaign is at reaching youth, it is foolish to sacrifice a growing youth infrastructure and put all of our faith in one campaign, and one candidate. Let's not get caught up in the myopia that so often accompanies Presidential politics. Let's have the vision to make smart, long-term investments in our youth and the sustainable institutions that can engage them for years to come.

Just a few links today . . .

• In the Washington Post, Jose Antonio Vargas notes that Left or Right, young or old, the internets hate John McCain.
• AlterNet interviews Keli Goff about her new book, Party Crashing, and the political trends among young African American voters.
• Across the Great Divide - a potentially interesting new blog chronicling the cross-country travels of a Millennial out to discover if his peers really are the "Next Great Generation."
• The Chicago Tribune runs the numbers and thinks young voters could tip a few vital swing states this year:
  

  If Obama could inspire just 10 percent more Democratic voters under 30 to go to the polls than did four years ago, that alone could be enough to switch Iowa and New Mexico from red to blue, the analysis suggests.

• Some pranksters (young freepers?) interrupted a conference call with Sherrod Brown, George Miller and the PIRGs about the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. - h/t PushBack
• Finally, John Stewart continues to warm my heart by mocking McCain. I think Stewart's man-crush is officially over.

Update II: MTV staffers wrote back to me saying that they do not place local advertisement and will only be accepting spots from the Presidential campaigns. So the whole idea of local politicians making use of this is moot. Another lost opportunity. So what's my final answer to the question "what are these ads really workth?" Not a whole lot unless you are MTV raking in the cash.

Update: So apparently there is one study looking at the efficacy of political ads targeted at young voters. A study by Green and Vavrek on the efficacy of 30 second cable ads by Rock the Vote found a statistically significant increase in youth turnout in the target areas:

The average intent to treat effect for voters between the ages of 18-24, for which the ads were designed, was 2 percentage points with a standard error of 1.37.

Not a huge bump, but a bump none the less. Still, it is worth studying more this year and this is more evidence that it can benefit candidates. However, peer-to-peer organizing is still far more effective at reaching younger voters. Contrary to Devine's message, that should remain the primary method used by campaigns to engage Millennials.
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I want to talk a little bit more about MTV's recent announcement that all of their cable channels not directed at children will now accept paid political advertisements.

This was prompted by a discussion amongst a few youth vote colleagues. Some of the ideas expressed were not originally my own, but I agree with them and don't have permission to quote the person who suggested them. Nevertheless, I think they're really important and deserve to see the light of day.

At the heart of the problem is the simple question "what are these ads really worth?" According to Tad Devine, the Democratic strategist quoted in the piece by Ad Age:

"I think MTV's decision to accept advertising is an important indication that the youth vote this year will have a real impact on the outcome of the election," said Tad Devine, a Democratic campaign strategist who handled Sen. John Kerry's campaign four years ago. "Now campaigns have the opportunity to reach young voters in a venue where they congregate, and I'm sure Obama's campaign will look seriously at advertising there, given his advantage with young people."

Not quite. While the Nielsen numbers for MTV might still be quite high, young people are far more likely to "congregate" online or in their communities: at bars, coffee shops, concert venues, barbershops, etc. Studies consistently show that peer to peer interaction is the surest way to encourage someone to vote. Democratic candidates would be far better served reaching out to young voters in these venues than in airing expensive spots on national television.

Reaching young voters is not magic. They are out there, in your community (for real!) and candidates and campaigns don't need MTV to magically open the door to those young voters.

However, this does present us with an opportunity. As far as I can tell, no one knows how effective targeted cable TV ads are at reaching young voters because no one has ever been able to test it out. This was tried in 2004, when the Rappaports tried to air ads on MTV through the organization Compare Decide Vote, but those ads were not accepted.

While I seriously doubt any national political advertisements on MTV will have any direct impact on increasing young voter turnout, it could potentially do a lot at the state level to increase name recognition for down-ballot candidates, move young people onto candidate websites, and turn them into online supporters. If a Senate candidate like Scott Kleeb or congressional candidate like Darcy Burner could (relatively cheaply) purchase some time only in their local markets, that might do a lot for getting their name out there among young voters and moving that support online. From there, a smart campaign should be able to move some of that support offline or collect enough information to increase the effectiveness of their voter registration and GOTV work.

One final caveat. According to Ad Age:

"MTV Networks will accept political advertising that is national in scope, sponsored by a legally qualified candidate, a candidate's official campaign committee, a nationally recognized political party, or the official congressional campaign committee(s) of a nationally recognized party."

My reading of this leads me to believe that issue advocacy organizations will NOT be allowed to purchase air time. That is a shame. This could be truly useful for a group like MoveOn or PowerShift in raising awareness about anti-war or pro-environment actions. Yes, it would open up MTV to conservative messages as well, but that's what the open market of ideas is about. This seems like a big missed opportunity to get more young people actively involved in the national policy discussion.

I've long worried that John McCain could be, as Arianna Huffington put it yesterday at the Personal Democracy Forum conference, a "Trojan Horse" candidate for the GOP. His perceived status as a maverick and his cultural savvy has long inoculated him from the troubles plaguing the Republican Party and boosted his image among young voters. Out of all the GOP contenders, he seemed most capable of reviving the Republican brand among a generation trending heavily Democratic.

According to a new poll by Democracy Corps, that image of McCain the Maverick has shattered.

Since Democracy Corps' last survey in April, John McCain's favorable ratings among young voters has dropped from 34 to 30%, and his unfavorable ratings have jumped over ten points, rising from 37 to 49%. Two of the supposedly biggest advantages a McCain candidacy brings to the GOP - his popularity with independents and his "liberal" views on immigration reform - also took serious hits in recent months. Among independent young voters, McCain's unfavorable rating nearly doubled, rising from 27% in April to 49% in June, and among Hispanics his unfavorable rating is now a whopping 70%. Apparently McCain's "principled" stand on immigration during the primaries was not enough to pull Hispanics back towards the Republican Party.

According to the report, McCain's favorable/unforable numbers now mirror those of the Republican Party, which has seen it's brand collapse among young voters in the past two years:

In a head to head match-up against Barack Obama, McCain loses the youth vote 66 - 33% among likely voters, a larger margin than Democrats enjoyed during the wave election of 2006.

What happened to McCain the Maverick? How did his highly-cultivated independent brand crash so fast?

Democracy Corps points to the transformation of McCain into "McSame," a typical politician tied to the failures of the Bush Presidency and the Republican Party. That notion has gained great traction in recent months, in particular around the issues of Iraq and the economy, the two most pressing issues in the eyes of young voters and two areas in which McCain is most tightly tied to the policies of the Bush Administration and the GOP.

According to Democracy Corps, when McCain's policies on Iraq and the economy are laid before young voters, along with potential consequences for young Americans, a majority of young voters (~60 - 65%) express serious to very serious doubts about McCain's candidacy. As long as McCain holds policy positions simlar to Bush and the GOP on those two major policy issues, and as long as Democrats, bloggers, and activists continue to explain the consequences of those policies to young voters, it's hard to see how McCain can recover his maverick status and gain ground among young voters.