50 State Strategy

Its funny this blog would pop up - I was just talking to my boss today about the ways in which the electoral map is changing because the DNC implemented the 50 State Strategy rather than the previous isolationist philosophy to GOTV in urban areas and traditional democratic strong holds.

Dean's 50 State Strategy built the foundation that was prime for a democratic presidential candidate to capitalize on. With Obama as the presumed nominee its no surprise that his campaign is moving into general election mode with its own.

The Political News blog reports on a recent conference call the Obama campaign did in attempts to feed Wright obsessed reporters the 50 State voter registration drive, to no avail.

The blog goes on to talk about stats from fivethirtyeight.com and the extent to which Obama's youth following and the insane youth turnout will help push him to victory.

"Just as he did with African-Americans, Poblano used his regression model and simulation engine to examine how increases in turnout among two other crucial demographics -- 18-24 year-olds and Latino voters -- would affect Obama’s electoral prospects.

While under 50 percent of both these groups voted in 2004, their participation is expected to improve significantly this year. Young voters are more enthusiastic than ever. Meanwhile, efforts to mobilize the Latino population have so far proved very successful this primary season.

Poblano found that increasing the youth vote by 25 percent would give Obama 16 additional electoral votes and boost his chance of beating McCain by nearly 7 percent (assuming that this group breaks 70-30 towards Obama):

While 18-24 year-olds are spread rather evenly across all 50 states, Poblano points to Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota as states with traditions of high youth turnout. His baseline currently has them all in Obama’s column. But if young voters flock to the polls come November – as they’re expected to – these three states could end up far out of McCain’s reach."

This is great info for Obama, but I think it also proves what we've assumed for a long time that Obama is a stronger top of the ticket candidate that can filter down ballot to local races if coordinated with aggressive state party programs. I think it also bodes well for some of the young candidates we have on the ballot like Scott Kleeb in Nebraska, Andrew Rice in Oklahoma, and Don Betts in Kansas.

They are also all younger than their opponents, that's for sure. In fact, one thing is for certain... they are all younger than John McCain. Here are some other things that are also younger than John McCain....

Matt Bai's new book, The Argument: Bloggers, Billionaires, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics hit the shelves this week. The buzz about this book has been pretty heavy, as Bai is known for writing some of the better political pieces in the New York Times Magazine in recent years, and he's been something of a fixture in the new progressive movement, appearing at Yearly Kos (both years) and tagging along at Drinking Liberally's and other events.

Over at AlterNet, Don Hazen rips the book to shreds, basically calling Bai a shill for Clintonism and the DC insider class in opposition to which the blogosphere and broader netroots have arisen. This is the book people are going to be talking about for the next few months, and even Hazen admits that it provides valuable history on the last 4 years in Democratic politics (particularly Dean's 50 State Strategy and the rise of the Democracy Alliance).

My copy is in the mail. I'll be looking forward to seeing if Hazen's review holds up.

There has been some talk around here about the value of Howard’s 50 State Strategy that gets candidates to run in all offices

“Not only is this the best way of distributing the party’s message, but it ensures the engagement of the youth that is so vital to the party’s long-term health and vitality.” Says Craig a poster on FM. “People that want to write off the South or any other part of this country bother me. By doing this, we’re telling young people to stay at home, sit on their rear ends, and allow the government to do whatever it wants. By doing this, we validate apathy.”

I couldn’t agree more. I am on vacation this week back to the homeland to visit family and friends for my birthday week – yes it’s a whole week – and it prompted me to really think about how things have changed in terms of the way we do outreach with Dean’s 50 State Strategy, how effective it is, and how it impacts the up and coming voters.