CIM

The Washington Post is reporting that Barack Obama is the first candidate to purchase national TV ad time in the Super (Fat) Tuesday contests. So far, Obama has purchased air time on CNN and MSNBC.

This is a new phase in the Democratic nominating process, and one that most of us are not used to seeing. The campaigns - at least Clinton and Obama - are now in a position where they need to run a national contest between now and February 5th. The crazy thing is that because of online fundraising and the growth of small-dollar donors, they actually have the cash to do this well.

For Obama, this has to mean one of two things - and most likely both. First, he's got to cede control and totally decentralize his field operation. He can't focus all his resources on one place and the candidate can't be in every state holding events and making his case. His supporters - online and offline - are going to have to be the standard bearers of his message.

Second, he's going to need to take the advice of the New Politics Institute and use cable TV ad-buys to target young voters. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the Obama campaign focused a lot of attention on young voters. They did hundreds of rallies, shook thousands of hands. The candidate was a real presence in those states. And the youth vote turned out in big numbers for Obama, even driving him to victory in Iowa with a massive turnout that was equal to 22% of the total electorate.

In Nevada, the candidate was much less of a presence until the final week. There were other mitigating factors as well, but this was in part one of the reasons for low youth turnout (compared to the rest of the electorate) in Nevada. That in turn was a primary reason why Obama lost the popular vote in the state.

If he's going to win on February 5th, Obama will need to find a way to reach out and speak to those voters; to make his presence known and impress upon them the importance of voting in their local primary/caucus. Cable buys can be a cheap and efficient way to do that by targeting young people who watch prime-time and late-night shows on Comedy Central, Cartoon's Network's Adult Swim, and MTV's reality series (yeah, trust me, a lot of 20 somethings still tune in).

Buying cable isn't as sexy as grassroots, decentralized organizing facilitated by the web. Nor is it a replacement for those activities. But it is one other weapon in the campaign arsenal that can help the candidate reach out and speak directly to younger voters at a time when the retail politics that helped him win in Iowa are just not possible.

Cross posted from The Washington Independent

In the battle to court young voters in Nevada, Sen. Barack Obama (D–IL) emerged victorious at Saturday’s caucus for the Democratic presidential nomination. But it was not enough for him to overcome Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D–NY) advantage among older voters and women, who carried the New York senator to a 51 percent to 45 percent victory over her rival.

According to polling data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), more than 15,000 young voters participated in the Democratic caucus on Jan. 19, a dramatic increase over turnout in 2004, when only 9,000 Nevadans – young and old – took part. Obama won 59 percent to 33 percent among voters aged 18–29, recapturing a solid base of support that seemed shaky after he lost to Clinton among 25–29 year-olds in the New Hampshire primary.

Despite those gains in Nevada turnout, young voters wielded significantly less influence there than in previous contests this year. That proved a detriment to the Obama campaign.

While young voters make up 22 percent of eligible voters in Nevada, CIRCLE estimated they were only 13 percent of caucus-goers on Saturday. This was a sharp decrease from Iowa and New Hampshire, where young voters were 22 percent and 18 percent of the electorate, respectively. In comparison, voters older than 60 made up 36 percent of the electorate on Saturday.

Youth organizers, who spent weeks -- and in the case of the Nevada Young Democrats, months -- in the state educating young voters about the caucus process, were quick to point out a number of mitigating factors that may account for the smaller turnout. Most significantly, they note that attention from the presidential campaigns, which ramped up in the week leading up to the caucus, came too little, too late. Campaigns were on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire for months, and the candidates themselves visited the states more than 100 times. This was not the case in Nevada, where the leading candidates were all but absent until recently.

The start time of the caucus, which required that participants be in line by noon, may also have played a role in the lower youth turnout. Many young people in Nevada work night shifts. "I talked to a number of young voters who expressed their frustration," said David Hardt, president of the Young Democrats of America, who was in Nevada to observe the caucus. He continued, "The caucus didn't allow anyone who works nights the opportunity to be part of the process."

Youth advocates also noted that organizing students in Nevada can be difficult. Many local colleges and universities are commuter schools, dispersing the youth population and complicating canvassing efforts. Another problem they cited was that the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, one of the largest schools in the state, will not be back in session until Jan 22.

Despite these challenges, the youth organizers interviewed all insisted that young Nevadans made a generational statement in favor of change in their support for Obama. Many asserted that, despite smaller turnout, young voters are still playing a big role.

“It is clear young people are keeping Obama competitive'" said Jane Fleming Kleeb, the executive director of the Young Voter PAC, "they are much more excited by Democrats overall.”

That may be true. Young voters, along with African-Americans, Independents and secular voters, were one of the few demographics to overwhelmingly support Obama over Clinton. They helped the Illinois senator emerge from the Silver State with something of a win -- or at least a tie. Though Clinton captured the popular vote, because of the way the caucuses are weighted, Obama will take 13 delegates to the Democratic Convention, compared to Clinton’s 12. Candidates need 2,208 delegates to secure the nomination.

Kleeb is also right that young voters are supporting the Democratic candidates in greater numbers than the Republicans. The number of young people participating in the Democratic caucus was more than triple that of the GOP caucus. This continued a trend seen in previous states, and is consistent with youth voting trends in national elections since 2004.

According to research by CIRCLE, in the 2004 general election, younger voters chose Sen. John Kerry (D–MA), the Democratic nominee, over President George W. Bush 54–45 percent. In the 2006 midterm, young voters chose Democratic candidates over GOP candidates by the even greater margin, 60–38 percent. More recently, youth participation in the Iowa Democratic caucus was four times as large as that in the Republican caucus; and in New Hampshire Democratic youth turnout was almost double Republican turnout.

Young Nevadans who did participate in the Republican caucus overwhelmingly chose former Gov. Mitt Romney, who captured 50 percent of the GOP youth vote. Romney went on to win the Republican caucus. Rep. Ron Paul (R–TX) came in second, with 15 percent of the youth vote, and 14 percent of the total vote.

Youth support among the Republican candidates remains more divided than on the Democratic side. Young conservative voters in different states have thrown their support behind three different candidates. In Iowa, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. captured the youth vote – potentially on a wave of young evangelical support. In New Hampshire, Sen. John McCain (R–AZ) won the youth vote with support from young Independents. Romney has now twice captured young conservative voters -- first in Michigan and now in Nevada.

Overall, young voters continue to play a smaller role in the GOP nominating process than on the Democratic side. Young Republicans made up a smaller share of the Republican electorate than their Democratic peers in all the previous states.

Pizza Hut wants you to vote:

Call me cynical, and maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but I found the way that the first student mocks the "change" message we're seeing this election cycle a little disturbing. Why would you mock the #1 reason young people are turning out?

Equally strange was the follow-up line "I could use more change in my pocket." My first response to that was to ask if that was code for "we need more tax cuts."

And let's face it, to use a bad pun, that commercial is totally cheesy. It feels like a half-hearted attempt if anything.

So I went on Open Secrets and did a little digging. Pizza Hut is owned by Yum! Brands, Inc. Yum! Brands also happens to have a PAC of the same name. Here's what their donations look like from the last 4 cycles:

That's a whole lot more money going to Republicans than to Democrats. Even now, when a Democratic victory looks pretty good, they're only barely hedging their bets, and Republicans are still getting more money.

Does Pizza Hut really want you to vote? Or do they want you to vote Republican? Or would they rather you just stay home and eat pizza?

The ads are on the air in Nevada and South Carolina.

PEW has released some interesting data on the news consumption habits of Americans, and they were kind enough to break out the 18 - 29 demographic in their analysis. By itself, the topline is pretty unremarkable: "young people get news on the internet," but there is a lot of useful information buried in the report

Pulling out some interesting findings:

• Cable news remains a very important distribution outlet for news if you want to reach young voters, but Sunday talk shows are virtually worthless for reaching young people.
• About a quarter of young people get their news through daily newspapers, but that influence doesn't translate online, where major political news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post get relatively little attention from young people.
• Only 10% cite late-night talk shows (read: Daily Show, Colbert Report) as sources of information. This cuts against conventional wisdom, though it's not that surprising. Relatively speaking, those shows have a rather small, though granted highly influential and informed, audience.
• The Long Tail is a substantial source of news for young people - this means political blogs, blogs of friends, chat boards, email forwards - an amalgamation of sources that likely rely more on peer networks than and influence than broadcast capability. As the report notes:

However, even as the variety of campaign web information resources has expanded, there are indications that most internet users do not go online for the sole purpose of learning about the campaign. Rather, a majority of web users (52%) say they “come across” campaign news and information when they are going online to do something else. This practice is particularly prevalent among younger web users: 59% of web users under age 30 come across campaign news online compared with 43% of those ages 50 and older.

This seems particularly important because 52% is more than double the 20% who get their news from long-tail sources. This means that even for campaign news found via myspace, CNN.com, Facebook, or any other on-line source, odds are better than even that a young voter found that information through random searches or through exposure via a peer network.

Millennials are at a tipping point in their media consumption habits - particularly as it applies to politics. Broadcast outlets like the cable news networks remain important for the moment, but more and more it is exposure to news and information through online peer networks that is the dominant way of distribution information.

CIRCLE has released a fact sheet (pdf) on yesterday's primary in Michigan. Despite the fact that the Democratic primary was virtually uncontested, turnout among 18 - 29 year olds still rivaled that seen by the Republican Party, and as a share of the electorate, young people played a more decisive role in the Democratic Primary than they did in the Republican.

100,776 young voters aged 18 - 29 participated in yesterday's Democratic Primary (choosing "uncontested" over Hillary Clinton, 48% - 43%). They were 17% of the Democratic electorate. Comparatively, 112,833 18 - 29 year olds voted in the Republican Primary, and they were just 13% of the Republican electorate. Republican youth gave Mitt Romney a plurality of their votes, though it was a fairly tight race between the Governor and his top three opponents - John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and dark horse Ron Paul.

Good news for Democrats - even when there's no race we got turnout that is just as good among young voters.

Update: CNN has updated their exit poll and now is putting the race much closer, though Clinton is still losing the youth vote. New stats below.
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Turnout was very low due to a combination of bad weather and the fact that neither Barack Obama nor John Edwards were on the ballot, but it is probably worth noting that "uncommitted" beat out Senator Clinton among both 18 - 24 and 25 - 29 year olds. This is somewhat shocking after Clinton seemed to make headway among the 25 - 29 demographic in New Hampshire, but could very easily be due to the fact that, running unopposed, Clinton didn't campaign nearly as hard in Michigan as she did in the Granite State. Nevada and South Carolina will be the real test for Clinton's redoubled youth outreach efforts.

From the CNN Exit poll:

Young Voters (18 - 29) were 17% of the electorate - the smallest group, but that seems unsurprising considering that this was never a real race like we saw in Iowa and New Hampshire. I'm curious to know whether the lack of election day registration may have played a part as well . . . both Iowa and New Hampshire have election day registration. Michigan does not and the voter rolls closed on December 17th.

I've written in the past about the problems associated with polling young voters and how these are exacerbated by our habits of not owning a land-line. This is a growing problem for pollsters as more and more people abandon their landline and go cell-phone only.

This week, Gallup took a huge step forward in addressing these problems when they announced plans to begin including cell phones numbers in their surveys.

Still, Gallup has been studying and investigating the implications of cell phone only households for well over a year now. And, as of Jan. 1, 2008, Gallup has made the decision to include cell phone interviewing as part of the sample used for its general population studies.

This is a complex and costly modification in methodology. Our statisticians and methodologists have spent a great deal of time reviewing the procedures and implications of the change. Essentially, in addition to sampling from the traditional database of all landline telephone exchanges, Gallup now also adds in sampling from a new database of all cell phone telephone exchanges in the country. We screen for those individuals using cell phones who report not having a landline, and then interview a random sample thereof. We then weigh into the sample a proportionate percentage of these interviews conducted via cell phone.

We’re continually monitoring the methodology of our interviewing, and revise on a regular basis as appropriate. We'll be analyzing the implications of this shift in methods particularly carefully.

Mark Blumenthal has more on the consequences and significance of this change in methodology:

For now, at least, this change is not likely to produce dramatic differences in the results. The ongoing cell phone surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center have shown that the missing cell-phone-only population rarely makes a difference of more than a point or two. But that point or two may sometimes make a difference, especially in a close race. Consider last week's Gallup poll in New Hampshire. USA Today polling editor Jim Norman let us know, via email, that they included a cell-phone sample on that survey:

[I]t added a point to Obama's total and took one away from Clinton. In other words, without the cell-phone-only respondents, Obama's lead among likely voters was 11, not 13.

The bigger significance in this change is symbolic. Gallup is the granddaddy of all polling firms. Their polling "time series" goes back to the 1930s. As such, they are typically the most cautious about changes in methodology, so their move to regular cell-phone sampling is likely to have a big ripple effect on the polling industry. At very least, this most closely watched poll will provide a regular source of data on the potential impact of the cell-phone-only households that will be missing from other surveys.

If Gallup continues to adopt this as their standard, other polling firms will follow, and the "added costs" of collecting a large enough sample of younger voters will instead become the normal costs of doing business. Maybe then we'll see more polling that can reliably break out the opinions of young voters, which currently are subject to wide margins of error or ignored altogether.

If Gallup begins to show statistically different findings from other polls, you can be sure that this will happen.

This is a little dated, but Kate Sheppard over at Tapped clued me in to a 2003 CIRCLE study (pdf) that examined the role that state parties play in engaging young voters in the political process. The study found that among Democratic and Republican state party leaders, an overwhelming majority thought that senior citizens were the most important demographic for the long-term health of the party. Yeah, wrap your head around the logic of that one.

When asked an open-ended question, only 5% of Democratic Party leaders and 8% of Republican Party leaders thought that younger voters were the most important group for the future health of their party. Each official was asked this question two more times, and at the end of the survey, only 32% of Democratic leaders and 26% of Republican leaders mentioned young people as a constituency of any importance to the party.

Granted, this study was published in 2003, a few months before the youth organizing boom revved up, and it was over a year before youth turnout began it's upward trend. But this is a good indication for how clueless the parties were - and to a large extent continue to be - about the importance of engaging young voters.

I'd love to see a follow-up to this study. My bet is that the situation wasn't much changed as recently as two months ago, though after Obama's big youth turnouts, it's an open question now. The youth organizing movement now has a huge opportunity to push the state and national parties into putting real resources into young voter engagement and turnout.

There's a good piece in The Hill today about how a post-9/11 generation is making a run at Congress, aided in part by a rash of retirements by older members (and, unsaid in the article, many Republicans).

From early favorites like 26-year-old Aaron Schock (R) in Illinois to hopefuls like 29-year-old Bill McCamley (D) in New Mexico, the odds on their candidacies differ. But their numbers are as high as ever before, and many are running in some of the most competitive districts in the country.

Scott Kleeb, a 32-year-old Democrat who ran a spirited campaign in a dark-red Nebraska House district in 2006, is weighing a Senate bid this year. He argues that the Sept. 11 attacks helped galvanize a generation of young people to believe in public service again, and those young people are now running for federal office.

The "student" section of Mitt Romney's website seems to have evaporated into the interwebs, but the man himself was on the ground today in Michigan dispensing sage advice to high school students in an attempt to woo the youth vote away from McCain and Huckabee:

Romney was a bit less emotive and a bit more reasoned in his approach to telling the students what they could get out of high school. First, he compared life to the show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” from the 1970s, explaining that choices in life are all about the trades made.

“And the difference, however, between life and that show is that you know what’s behind the curtain. People will tell you what’s behind the curtain,” he advised. “You get to make a trade, but you make it with your eyes open. You’re not blind, and so you’re making choices now, and you will make choices over the coming years, and you know what the consequences of good choices or bad choices will be.”

Jeebus. I don't know what's worse, that, his youth fundraising pyramid scheme, or comMITT 2 the FUTURE - the now defunct youth operation.

Still, credit where it is due. The man got his clock cleaned among young voters by Huckabee in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire. Michigan is his last stand and he's reaching for every vote he can get. Not a bad move considering that Michigan residents can vote in either primary and the Democratic race is uncontested due to intra-party squabbles about the nominating contest.

As atonement for this slow news day, I also offer this moment of Mitt Romney Zen: