527

Things are definitely in flux but they are slowly starting to come into focus. I spent last week responding to Erica Williams thoughtful post on where we are as a "movement," (or rather, as an increasingly important part of the progressive movement). Today I thought I'd spend some time outlining what's happening now, where we are all headed in the immediate future, and some things I'd like to see accomplished this year. These are all still imperfectly formed ideas, and I'd love feedback from anyone and everyone as to what sounds right, what needs to be tweaked, and what is totally off base.

We are shifting from a focus on elections to policy. We spent the past 5 years focused primarily on building an infrastructure to support increased young voter turnout and the production of skilled leaders to organize our generation and to merge into the general progressive movement. As Erica rightly pointed out in her piece, policy still remains our Achilles heel, and we have a number of short and long-term challenges ahead of us in overcoming that weakness. During the next two months we need to:

• Produce a list of policies we'd like to see included in the President-Elect's 100 Days Agenda.
• Begin to open communications channels and create working relationships between our groups, the White House and the Chambers of Congress.

These are not either/or propositions. In fact, working on the first will require that we make headway with the second.

With regard to policy and the First 100 Days, I think we have a few questions to consider. To what extent is it wise/strategic to have a separate "youth agenda" instead of joining a broader "progressive agenda" and lending our support to coalitions and organizations already working on those issues? To what extent are the policies that we want to see already being proposed by the administration? If they are, how do we effectively put our wind at Obama's back to help encourage passage of that legislation? To what extent should we be thinking about large scale projects and themes vs the knitty gritty details? Stated another way, will we be for "a just and equitable energy economy that creates green jobs, protects our environment and strengthens our national security," or should we be prepared to present the President with highly specific proposals and tweaks to existing laws that could have a real, demonstrable impact on the lives of our generation?

Whatever our answer is to the above questions, we're going to need some help accomplishing our goals - both in the administration and in congress.

Two weeks ago the Obama Transition Team appointed Lily Rothman, a Pennsylvania youth organizer for the campaign, as Youth Liaison for the transition. I've spoken with Lily and my understanding is that she is on staff to consult with youth advocates in order create the job description for the eventual White House youth liaison. To the extent that she can help, we need to be working with Lily not only on ensuring that the eventual WH Youth Liaison is an effective partner and advocate for our work, but that we are properly navigating the channels in the Administration that will let us put specific policies into consideration for the first 100 Days. In particular I see the liaison helping set up meetings between youth advocates and the appropriate policy teams within the Administration and perhaps on the Hill.

In the House we have some amazing connections to the Leadership - people who really get the dynamics of our organizations - our strengths and our weaknesses. In the coming months we are going to rely heavily on them to help guide us not just through the first hundred days, but the entire congressional session. I see this taking a number of forms - acting as liaison between youth advocates and specific lawmakers and policy committees; offering important background knowledge on committee dynamics; providing information on process and rules of the House. Unfortunately, we have no such connections to the Senate Leadership.

Forging strong working relationships in the White House and Congress - and strengthening existing ones - should be a high priority between now and the start of the next legislative session. It is these congressional liaisons that can alert us when specific bills we want to track move through committee, or are held up by opponents. They can keep us informed about what is going on behind the scenes, and it is to them that we will look for advice on how best to move those bills through committee, onto the floor, and eventually to the President's desk.

On a more long-term note, it's important to recognize that some organizations will necessarily take the lead on specific bills, and it will be quite easily to establish a few gate keepers with whom these working relationships with the administration and congress are built. In fact, it is probably inevitable that such a situation will arise. Unfortunately, it will also mean that valuable new institutional knowledge within the policy arena will remain locked away in only a few people's heads. To disperse that knowledge as widely as possible, we're going to need a new vehicle to aggregate and distribute information about bills we are tracking, who is sponsoring them, who opposes them, where they are in the process, when it is appropriate and most helpful to run campaigns in support of (or occasionally opposition to) a specific bill or amendment, etc. Creating and sharing such institutional knowledge is key not only to passing legislation early in the Administration, but in making our collective groups more strategic legislative advocates on any and all policy matters, and I think it's vitally important for the long-term success of our organizations.

So where are we now on all of these items I've identified as "policy" priorities for the next year?

• On policy, the Generational Alliance has a proposed "Youth Agenda," though no group outside their coalition has signed on to support it and it remains in the realm of vague general principles. Most of the questions I raised above remain outstanding.
• A number of youth advocates, including Future Majority, have held discussions with Lily Rothman and others in the transition about longterm goals for youth advocates in 2009 and ways that a White House Liaison can help attain those goals. Currently there is no definitive process or timetable laid out as to when or how that liaison will be selected, or how influential our input will be in making that decision.
• In the House, many youth organizers have connections to the Leadership and we have an advocate that can help guide us through the policy process. This seems to be our strongest card at the moment and we're talking with the House Liaison about how we can best create those strong ties and communications channels to become more effective policy advocates.
• In the Senate, we have no such connection to help us navigate the ropes.
• Long-term, Future Majority and a number of groups and individuals involved in policy making are discussing the best ways to aggregate and distribute information about specific policy proposals and any information that would be useful in organizing for or against those proposals.

While the focus will shift to policy, we still have more progress to make when it comes to electoral politics. The Obama campaign remains anomalous among Democratic campaigns in the extent to which it relied upon and reached out to young voters. As we move closer to the 2010 midterms, we need to make sure that at least some of us keep a focus on convincing state parties, party committees (DNCC, DSCC) and the DNC that they need to continue to focus on engaging young voters every year and at all levels of the campaign trail.

Ironically, even though I think we are strongest when it comes to electoral politics, we are further away from attaining these goals than we are the policy goals I outlined above. The state parties and party committees have proven quite stubborn in refusing to validate a young voter strategy to their staff/members, and even more stingy in moving resources to support youth work. From what I've heard, only one state party - Ohio - designated any resources to a young voter strategy in 2008.

So what are our options here? How can we get the Democratic Party structures on board the youth train?

• DNC Youth Council - the council is an official body within the DNC, made up of all DNC members under 36, plus 12 At-Large delegates from around the country (disclosure, I'm one of those At Large delegates). The council's mission is to push for greater inclusion of youth within the DNC. The council doesn't have a whole lot of teeth when it comes to something as big as changing the way the DNC does business, but members can get the ear of people within the DNC and use those connections to find out who to talk to at the State Parties and Party Committees.
• White House Youth Liaison - The President of the United States is de facto head of their party, meaning that an Obama administration should have a lot of pull at the DNC. One of the proposed roles of the White House Youth Liaison is to act as a champion for a youth strategy within the Party structures. It's possible that this person could be more helpful/effective in this project than in helping youth groups navigate the policy world.

We need to continue forging ties with other youth groups. One thing I've noted recently is that we're all a little insulated. As I noted last week, when I refer to the term "youth movement," I'm referring to a number of groups primarily - though not exclusively - that began in the last 5 or so years to fill the gaps in the Democratic Party and larger progressive movement in engaging young people and developing young leadership. Largely, these groups might also be classified another way - institutions that by and large raise their budgets through a small and specific set of Democratic and Progressive donors. Over the last year, we've done a great job at networking and sharing information with each other (when legally appropriate). I think that was a huge step in the right direction for us in terms of efficiency and sharing best practices/institutional knowledge. At the same time, I think that in part in part due to that greater networking, we've formed our own little "clique" in youth organizing. A lot of us started as outsiders, but when it comes to youth electoral organizing, in many ways we have now grown into the new "insiders." That of course implies that there are "outsiders."

There are plenty of organizations out there that are engaging youth - nationally and globally (like the recent AYM conference I mentioned), but which I would not classify as "in our movement." Figuring out if and how we should work with them is something I'd like to see us tackle this year as well. If there really is a youth or at least generational movement afoot, we should be plugged into it, not separate from it.

These are just some very rough thoughts about where I think we are currently at as a movement, collective or whatever you want to call us. Throughout the rest of the week I'll try to flesh out all these ideas a little more on an individual basis.

I thought I'd weigh-in on a public battle between B. Lee Drake of the College Democrats and the College Republican National Committee. Last week, Drake posted an op-ed accusing the CRNC of being nothing more than an ineffectual slush fund for the Republican Party:

I don't know about you, but there is a poverty hidden by the seven-figure sums of the CNR budget. Look around you on campus today, and you see students registering each other to vote in record numbers. Of all the groups doing this, the College Republicans of UNM have yet to participate. So long as the organization is treated as a slush fund, they rob themselves of the ability to gather younger recruits and participate in the growth of youth activism. Beyond what speakers or events that student groups host, our most important activity is undoubtedly registering students to vote in the rush to the Oct. 7 deadline. We've even established early voting in the SUB that will last from Oct. 18 to Nov. 1. But the College Republicans have long ago stepped out of that volunteerism and instead sold themselves out to campaign contribution leftovers.

The College Republicans rebutted with an op-ed by Ashley Barbera, in which she pointed out the paucity of funds available to College Democrats due to their status as an appendage of the DNC, and contrasted that to what the CRNC is able to accomplish with their larger budget.

I won't argue with the first part of Barbera's piece. I've written at length about how the College Democrats are financially disadvantaged by remaining within the DNC. And I don't think Drake is right in saying that the CRNC is a slush fund for the Republican Party. However, the College Republican's budget requires much closer scrutiny, as do Barbera's claims.

Barbera touts the CRNC's fundraising prowess, and notes that

Our money comes from a national network of 110,000 supporters, mostly small-dollar donors, who recognize the importance of reaching out to young voters.

According to Open Secrets, the College Republican National Committee has raised $4.7 million this cycle. Of that money, a full 73% - $3.2 million - went back into fundraising. What's going on here? Well looking into the expenditures it becomes clear:

2008 CRNC Budget by Expenditures

$3.2 million to Infocision Management, a Republican direct mail and telemarketing firm. The College Republicans aren't a slush fund, but they aren't a mega-funded super org either. They're an incredibly inefficient direct mail and telemarketing operation that spends 75 cents for every dollar it raises. And this money does not come, as Barbera suggests, from 110,000 small donors who "understand the need to reach out to young voters." As this article in the Seattle Times makes clear, the vast majority of donors who give to the CRNC have no idea they are giving money to the college Republicans. They are elderly men and women, tricked into giving by dishonest telemarketing and direct mail scams. In the last three electoral cycles, the number one employment category of individual donors to the CRNC is "retired."

Looking further into the CRNC's 2008 expenditures, almost 1/4 of a million dollars goes to consultants - almost as much as the $373k the organization paid to its employees. The College Republicans aren't a $4.8 million juggernaut of youth organizing. Once you take out the money spent on fundraising, they are a $1.2 million org that spends 1/5 of its budget padding the pockets of consultants.

I'm sure the rebuttal from the CRNC will be that this is still far better than the College Democrats, but comparing the College Democrats and College Republicans is like comparing apples and oranges. As Barberra herself states, CDA is an appendage of the DNC, while the CRNC is an independent 527, able to raise much greater sums of money on its own and operate independently of the Republican Party. As such, CRNC's closest analogue on the Democratic side of the aisle is the Young Democrats of America, also a 527 organization.

According to Open Secrets' analysis of YDA's expenditures for 2008, the group has raised far less money than CRNC, but the vast majority of YDA's expenditures go towards salaries and programs for young voter outreach. They spend only a fraction of their total budget on fundraising. In fact, even with a budget that is only a fraction of the CRNC's overall budget, YDA still manages to spend more money on their staff and programs than does the CRNC:

YDA 2008 Budget Expenditures:

Now, I'm not looking to do a full comparison between YDA and the CRNC in terms of program, though I suspect such a comparison will be equally favorable to YDA. Even College Republicans on the CRNC's own blog question their reports about the tens of thousands of new recruits and hundred thousand phone calls cited by Barbera.

Such criticisms from within the organization are also directed at STORM, the social action network/CRM (constituent relationship manager) developed by CRNC. STORM was another accomplishment touted by Barberra, though it is hard to see why. The network is a barren wasteland, used by almost no one; so much so that I was able to infiltrate the network and become one of the "STORM Top 40" - a group of top recruiters given free housing and credentials at the Republican National Convention. This took almost no effort on my part, and to this day, my STORM profile confirms that I only recruited 17 people into the network. Reports on the CRNC blog say that STORM cost between $250 and $300k. Friends in the CMS/CRM business assure me that this price is outrageous for what is essentially a glorified database and email program.

Taking a longer view of the CRNC vs YDA budget also produces some rather unfavorable trends for CRNC. Whereas the YDA budget is growing each year, and YDA always operates within their budget, the CRNC's budget has shrunk dramatically in the last four years. And - ironically for the party of "fiscal responsibility" - CRNC can't seem to operate within their means, racking up massive debt in 2004 and 2006.

CRNC Budgets by Cycle

So while Drake may have missed the mark with his op-ed against the College Republicans, Barbera's response wasn't much better. A closer look at CRNC unmasks the organization as a paper tiger with more bark than bite.

Some light summer reading.

• Did Obama lift the ban on independent expenditures to outside groups? Maybe so. The real question is, will donors listen and how much can we get done in the time that is left.
• Obama to announce VP pick via text message. - First Read
• In a changing corner of PA, a glimpse of Obama's "age problem." - Washington Post
• The Bradley Effect or the Obama Effect: what aren't the polls telling us? - Huffington Post
• Could religious youth tip the election this fall? - Fox News
• Politics Unusual: Hip Hop's Hopes for Obama. - Huffington Post
• Help Our Veterans Vote - New York Times
• A New Generation of Black Leaders Looks to Lead - Hip Hop Caucus
• Are We Neglecting the Next Generation of Activists? - The American Prospect
• Court Supports Rights of Gay Students - AlterNet
• In Virginia, 64% of the states new voters are under 35. - InRich.com
• Early history of the Creative Commons. - Lessig Blog
• Rock the Vote is finally getting ready to air their Christina Aguilera PSA. - Washington Post

I'm happy to announce that starting next weekend, Craig Berger (aka bergerc84) will be joining us as the weekend blogger at Future Majority. Craig has consistently produced top-notch stuff on his user blog and it just seemed ridiculous that everything he wrote got promoted to the front. So welcome, Craig, to the FM team. Those interested can read a bit about Craig on the About page.

• Another FM community member, Maria Arettines, is blogging from the National Hip Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas this weekend. We'll hear more from Maria once the convention gets started.
• Meanwhile, Jeff Chang has a few thoughts about Ludacris's new song about Barack Obama, as well as the opening day of the Hip Hop Convention.
• Over at his personal blog, Bondelli has 34 +1 indispensible tips for those looking to organize and promote their work online.
• The jobless rate is at a four year high, putting a whole lot of young people looking for summer work in a pinch.
• NBS has hired Luke Russert, son of the late Tim Russert, to be one of their youth correspondents during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Luke, if you're out there, get in touch with us for the low-down on all the youth organizing at the Democratic Convention in Denver and in the general election.
• Washington Post blog The Sleuth thinks that the voter registration group HeadCount is going to have the most rocking party at the DNC.
• Advancing the Story has an interesting and useful critique of MTV's Street Team '08 citizen journalism program.
• Youth vote hero Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle pens a piece about the proxy battle for the youth vote that MoveOn and Let Freedom Ring are waging on the airwaves of MTV.
• The bloggers at Pushback continue to have an interesting discussion about the proper role of celebrities in engaging young voters.
• Fox News less successfully attempts to tackle that same topic.
• Rock the Vote notes that voting rights are human rights.
• ThePolitico tracks an emerging trend: growing interest among young people in becoming "green lobbyists."
• A young Republican pens an open letter to John McCain asking him to up his game in reaching young voters.

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.