conventions

It's come to my attention that at times when I was not physically at the convention, young people actually did speak at the podium. Specifically:

• Amanda Kubik, a 27 year old delegate spoke at 7pm Eastern time on Monday while surrounded by young delegates.
• Katherine Marcano, a 23-year-old supporter of Barack Obama from IA spoke about health care at 8pm Eastern on Tuesday.

I watched on TV on Monday and didn't see Kubik, and I was on a security line on Tuesday when Marcano spoke. My piece was wrong and I should have double checked the schedule. Apologies to all.

I will still stick by the fact that I'm personally disappointed that a young person didn't have a more high-profile speaking slot. 8pm and 7pm Eastern are 6 and 5pm in Denver with the time change. At those times most people were just starting to head over to the Pepsi Center, which tended to fill up around 7pm local time. In comparison, the head of the College Republicans is slated to address the RNC not long before John McCain takes the stage (or so they tell us, the schedule is in pretty heavy flux here in St. Paul).

Nevertheless, it was incorrect for me to say that no young people were at the podium during the convention and I regret the hyperbole. Especially in so far as it detracted from my main argument - that youth still do not have full representation within the DNC.

I've posted a ton of stuff about Trick or Vote and their viral street efforts during the DNC in Denver, but they were not the only youth organization with a clever marketing scheme to spread the word about their activities at the convention. Rock the Vote also had an innovative viral campaign on the streets of downtown Denver this week and I think they deserve a shoutout.

On Monday, the first day of the convention, I probably met at least two or three people on the street wearing black T-shirts with the number 81.6% written across the front in white, handing out identical black and white post cards. It definitely piqued my curiosity, even if I didn't stop (I'm super bad about stopping for canvassers). On Tuesday, I encountered them again with the number 13.3 emblazoned on their black T-shirts. The shirts and handouts were eye-catching, and on both days people were definitely stopping to talk to the volunteers about these mysterious numbers.

I think it was later that day that Bondelli explained to me the dynamics of the campaign. Each number represented a statistic about young voters. The campaign had a new number each day, culminating on Thursday, when the number was election day:

• Monday - 81.6%: the percentage of registered young voters who turned out in 2004.
• Tuesday - 13.3: the millions of young Americans without health insurance.
• Wednesday - 1,049,398: the number of 17-29 year olds who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• Thursday - 11.04.08: the day that young voters will decide their future

This is very reminiscent of the "November 2nd" campaign in 2004 in which (supposedly millions) of black T-shirts with the day of the 2004 election printed on them were created to increase visibility around the election, especially among young people.

This whole campaign seemed to attract a lot of attention in Denver. I don't know if Rock the Vote plans on rolling out a similar nation-wide campaign in the fall, but I could see it being an effective way to message about the election and youth participation during the final three or four weeks before the election. Maybe 1 T-shirt/message per week used by all the volunteers for the non-partisan (or even partisan, if they wanted) campaigns?

I know we've posted a ton of stuff about Trick or Vote this week, but thought I'd share this article I wrote for AlterNet. - Mike

What is the one day of the year that you expect a stranger to knock on your door? Halloween. And what's comes less than a week after Halloween? Election Day. What does that make Halloween? If you are a member of the Bus Federation or one of its partner organizations, it makes Halloween the best day of the year to launch a massive door-to-door canvass to Get Out the Vote (GOTV).

That's the pitch that Jefferson Smith, one of the founders of the Oregon Bus Project, gave to a group of young activists, insiders and media in Denver today at their Trick or Vote Launch Party.

Trick or Vote is exactly what it sounds like. Each year on Halloween, members of the Bus Federation (the Orgeon Bus Project, New Era Colorado, Forward Montana, New Mexico Youth Organized, and the Washington Bus) don their costumes to canvass neighborhoods to turnout the vote – especially the youth vote - in their communities. The program began with the Oregon Bus Project in 2004. That Halloween, hundreds of young Oregonians turned out to canvass, making it one of the largest door to door canvasses in the state history. Not only did the unprecedented effort get out the vote, it helped flip a number of state legislative races.

But don't just call it a canvass in drag. Organizations involved in the Bus Federation look at Trick or Vote as more than a way to get people to the polls, it's also a smart way to engage young people who want to make a difference, and care deeply about the issues, but may be turned away by a traditional canvass or a dreary job phonebanking. Programs like Trick or Vote function as a gateway drug to encourage deeper and deeper political action from their members.

This year Trick or Vote will go national, with at least nine organizations participating in 21 cities. With such a big push on the horizon, in what may be one of the most significant elections of our lifetime, the members of the Bus Federation are determined to sell their innovative program to the insiders and activists flooding Denver for the Democratic National Convention. It's not possible to walk past the Colorado Convention Center without being accosted by zombies, or mummies espousing the virtues of costumed canvassing. Even CBS anchor Katie Couric sported a Trick or Vote Button on TV at one point this week.

At the Trick or Vote party in downtown Denver, Bus Federation staffers walked around sporting cat ears and fangs, and Jessica and Roger Rabbit were in the audience to hear speakers like progressive icon Jim Hightower heap praise on the local grassroots organizing of the Bus Federation.

Guests were also given a look at a series of viral videos meant to spread the word about Trick or Vote:

So far young voters have turned our in record numbers and overwhelming chosen to lend their support to Barack Obama and other Democratic Candidates. If this trend continues in November, it might be due in no small part to the work or groups like the Bus Federation and innovative programs like Trick or Vote.

I have three awesome videos of about youth participation at the convention from Howard Dean, Alexandra Acker of YDA, and another women whose name I missed talking about the delegate count. Unfortunatey, my Flip camera USB connection seems to be busted and I can't upload them. So no pretty movies, just text.

Acker, the Executive Director of the Young Democrats, has been to three conventions. She's been everything from a volunteer to a super delegate back before anyone even cared about super delegates. She noted that youth participation in general is way up this year. As I've noted before, young people are 16% of all convention participants and there are 631 actual youth delegates.

Acker noted, however, that there are places where youth participation continues to lag. Young delegates are still not equal to young voter's share of the Democratic electorate (technically all demographics are supposed to be represented in proportion to their share of the electorate). And thus far, there have been no young speakers on the podium during the convention. Many of us expected to see a passing of the torch as Chelsea Clinton introduced her mother, and Acker expressed disappointment that Chelsea's role was reduced to narrating a video about her mother's life.

At the final DNC Youth Council meeting today - which was probably the highest attendance I've yet seen at a Youth Council Event, Howard Dean told all the young participants that they need to vote early, get their friends to vote, and get their parents to vote, but voting is not enough. Young people need move beyond voting and start running for office. This echoed a speech Dean delivered at Netroots Nation earlier in the summer.

In terms of non-delegate youth faces within the hall, the DNC Youth Council handed out a number of passes (not sure how many yet) to Invesco Field, and College Democrats were also able to get may of their members credentials to see Obama's acceptance speech. This seems to be the exception of the week, however, not the rule. Credentials to the Pepsi Center for young people were few and far between, and word is that the College Democrats weren't able to offer any credentials at all on Mon - Wed. This seems like a big oversight on the part of the DNCC.

In short: more young people than ever are participating as delegates this year, but young faces in the rest of the hall are fewer and far between for any young Democratic activists lacking insider connections. And for a political party that is riding a new wave of support among young voters, the lack of young faces addressing the convention is very disappointing.

I just got back from my panel at the Sea Change forum called "The Youngest Voter." Attendance was low and two of the panel participants didn't show up. I think the fact that the forum is within the perimeter and only accessible by delegates and participants is killing the attendance levels.

Even so, the panel was excellent. The focus was a documentary film by Michael Moore protege Jason Pollock called "The Youngest Candidate." The film follows four teenagers as they wage their first campaigns for mayor, city council, and school board. None of the candidates win, but the film presents a hard headed look at their idealism, determination, mistakes, and small victories on the campaign trail.

Jason is still looking for a distributor and anyone who can help him out should do so. This is a great, great film that needs to be seen.

I don't have much more to say about Day Two at the convention. I'll have another post shortly about the Trick or Vote party. The convention itself was intense. I was stuck up in the nosebleeds stage left, but even from their the roar of the crowd and thousands of unity signs were pretty amazing. I thought Clinton's speech did what it needed to do, but to be honest I've never been a fan of her speaking style. I just can't get as emotionally involved when she speaks. Anyway, I'm sure you've all already read a dozen news articles critiquing Hilary's speech so I won't waste more words on that. I will say that for my money, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer absolutely blew me away. I love that guy.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to write about the first day at the convention. The convention is so big that it's pretty much impossible to encapsulate. The actual convention is just the most visible part of what is going on. Even before the convention gavels in at 3pm each day, there are dozens of panels, networking events, and protests. While the convention conducts its business on national television, there are watch parties all over the city - for youth, bloggers, activists, anyone not able to snag a credential into the Pepsi Center that night. Long after the convention ends each night there are dozens of parties as organizations try to build their brand name, budding politicos try to climb up the next rung in the political ladder, and insiders hold private meetings with senators, major donors and political figures.

It's an incredible circus of activity created by insiders and outsiders all looking for their piece of the pie in this election cycle - from the crazy activist hawking buttons on the street to the major elected officials and delegates in on the floor. So it's hard to give show anything more than the tiniest slices of what is going on. That said, here's my .02 on what I experienced on the first day and what it's like covering the DNCC.

Credentials
You can't do anything or get anywhere without a credential at the convention. The first thing every morning is getting your credentials for the day, which are usually located in far-flung locations not near mass transportation. Walking is your friend and you do a lot of it in order to collect your credentials.

Youth Council Press Conference
The press avail arranged by the youth council seemed to go quite well. The room was packed with young delegates, activists and Press alike. About 15 groups gave an overview of their work in 2 minute shorts, and I hear that some decent press hits are starting to come out of it. Will.i.am showed up at the end to do his own briefing on the importance of the youth vote. Sarah will have video of this later today I think, and I'm working with Remix America on getting some footage as well - hopefully individual 2 minute clips of everyone's presentations for people to embed on their websites and pass around.

Probably my favorite speech during the press avail came from Crystal Strait of YDA. Crystal used her two minutes not to pump up YDA (though she could have), but rather to highlight that even though youth representation at this convention is higher than ever - 16% of all participants - it is still not on par with young voter's share of the Democratic electorate. Young voters could be 20 - 25% of the electorate in 2008. In 2004 we were 19% of all voting Democrats. It's important to continue to highlight that disparity and push the DNC to continue down the path of greater inclusion and support for youth engagement within the party structure.

Starz Center/Sea Change Forum
Progressive Strategies and a few other organizations have set up a private mini conference within the confines of the Pepsi Center perimeter set by the Secret Service. You can only get in if you are a credentialed delegate or have an all access pass to the Center. I was able to snag one of those all access passes by agreeing to participate in a panel on Wednesday about the youth vote.

Yesterday I got the chance to go see Drew Westen present on his book, The Political Brain. If you haven't read it, the book is about the role of emotion in political messaging and offers practical advice on how to properly frame political messages to invoke the emotions on which most people base their vote. Westen's presentation created a compelling argument that Democrats have lost ground for 30 years because Republicans successfully branded the words "Liberal" and "Democrat" with negative emotional meanings. In response, Democrats offered not appeals to emotion, but to logic and facts, acronyms and policy wonkery. That is, when we respond at all.

I spent a few years working with an organization that did framing and message research. One of the biggest problems is that Lakoff and most people who work on framing tend to stay in an uber-theoretical framework, offering little in the way of practical messages responding to the current news cycle, so Westen's presentation was a refreshing change.

On a personal, star-sighting note, Morgan Spurlock sat behind me during the presentation. The Sea Change forum has that kinda feel to it - like famous people are waiting around the corner.

Big Tent
The Big Tent is the official blogger headquarters of the convention, and like the Sea Change Forum it is really it's own mini-conference happening at the same time as the convention. As I noted in my post yesterday, this is the place to meet all the bloggers and activists, check out panels on issues like Green Jobs and the war, watch the convention via live stream and recharge your all important laptop batteries.

There are hundreds of bloggers here and we are light years away from 2004, when only a few bloggers were even credentialed for the convention. I wouldn't even be surprised if the vast majority of people sitting in the room with me as I type this weren't even blogging in 2004. The blogosphere has grown up in the last four years and the Big Tent is one of the major hubs of activity here in Denver. Media are here interviewing bloggers, and elected officials have stopped by to acknowledge the contributions that bloggers are making to the party every day.

After Parties
I attended two after parties, one by Rock the Vote, and another by HeadCount. HeadCount's party was at the Ogden, an independent venue here in Denver and was headlined by Robert Randolph and the family band (blues and gospel based pedal steel jam rock). I was super impressed with the event. Despite being a few miles away from the main hub of events, the place was packed with local young people, delegates and VIPs alike. Everyone seemed genuinely into the scene and it had a real authentic, community vibe to it. (Washington Post's The Sleuth agrees with our analysis.)

Talking to Andy Bernstein, the ED of HeadCount, he said the organization is on track to register 50,000 voters this summer on concert tours and at summer festivals.

Across town, back by the convention center, Rock the Vote's party featured N.E.R.D and Fallout Boy. This event was a little weirder. The event was held at the Ellie Hawkins Opera House. It had a schizophrenic vibe to it. In the halls of the Opera House, something of a star-fucker scene was in full force, while inside the auditorium, a very young crowd rocked out to the music. Cringe-worthy moment of the night: when Congressman Meeks came on to talk and asked everyone to get ready for "the Fallout Boys."

Despite a much larger venue, I'd estimate that the Rock the Vote show had an only slightly larger crowd than the Head Count show. The event was also slated to feature the winner of Rock the Vote's DemRockracy contest, but I got there later in the evening after N.E.R.D played and missed the opening act.

Things I missed
I skipped out on the actual convention to get some much needed rest before the after parties. I did manage to get to the Big Tent in time to see Michelle Obama's speech but missed out on the rest. Tonight I will be in the Pepsi Center for the Clinton extravaganza. More on that tomorrow.

The Harvard Institute of Politics released new survey numbers in a press conference held at the same time as that by the Youth Council. I'll have more on those survey results later today.

Here are some photos from Day 1:

I know I’m at the DNC and should be writing about the Democratic Convention. But I've got a lot of time offline early this afternoon due to the DNC Youth Council press conference, and this is as good a time as any to bring this up. So before I dig in to covering the DNC, I want to talk about another convention: the National Hip Hop Political Convention.

This post is late in coming – almost a month late, in fact. The reason is that I didn’t want to be the one to write it. In fact, I tried pretty hard not to be that person and there are two very good reasons why I shouldn’t be writing this post:

1. I didn’t attend the National Hip Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas.
2. I’m not terribly involved with any of the Hip Hop voting groups and don’t have a good handle on what is happening within those communities outside of the information I can glean that is publicly available on their websites, and through the commentary of people like Jeff Change and DaveyD.

I asked at least 5 separate people who were at the Hip Hop Convention and got two answers: a reluctance to slam the convention or no answer at all. Nevertheless, I don’t see the point in hiding what happened – that’s not going to make anyone who was disappointed by the convention feel any better. It’s not going to make anyone a smarter activist. And it’s not going to do anything to make sure that in 2010, when we might actually have a shot at implementing pieces of the Hip Hop platform established in 2004, convention participants will be ready and organized to push that agenda.

So since no one else seems to want to say it, here goes:

What happened to the National Hip Hop Political Convention?

In 2004, the convention boasted thousands of participants, many of whom registered at least 50 voters as a precondition to receiving full voting rights in establishing the Hip Hop Platform. While there were frictions between the different generations at the convention, the major consensus coming out of Newark was that the Hip Hop community established a vision for a Hip Hop policy agenda, and took the first steps in creating the field infrastructure required to push that plan at the voting booth.

Fast forward to last month, and only a few hundred people showed up at the convention: about 10% of the number from 2004. There was no voter registration requirement this time around. The panels and workshops were chaotic and from what I heard not well attended. How bad was it? I don’t know because no one who attended or organized it is saying anything – good or bad. After the convention in 2004, news coverage was high, at least in the progressive media and online. Today it’s crickets and tumbleweeds.

Well, not all crickets and tumbleweeds. There was one panel that grabbed a lot of headlines, and perhaps is illustrative of what went wrong with this years’ convention: the panel on electoral politics, which (d)evolved into an all-out brawl over the meaning, ownership, loyalties, and effectiveness of Hip Hop-based organizing.

You can listen to the panel for yourself here (I'd embed it, but Odeo's code is breaking the site), and Davey D does a good job summarizing the panel here.

You can judge for yourself, but I pull a couple things out of this.

• Most of the core constituency of the NHHPC – particularly those willing to engage in block to block organizing and electoral politics - are pro-Obama and are choosing his campaign as a vehicle for their activism.
• Among those who are left, there is no real consensus about electoral politics and voter registration work in the field. This means the real promise of the convention is also gone. They no longer have the numbers or consensus with which to organize effectively at the ballot box on a national scale.
• Rosa Clemente’s rant strikes me as extremely wrong headed. The Green Party has proven to be extremely inept at long-term political strategy and party building. Why is that a more acceptable vehicle for electoral activism and what does the Hip Hop generation owe to the Green Party? Additionally, I don’t really understand her beef with Tides Foundation or the youth groups funded by foundation money. Yes, some of them are very much within the Democratic party sphere of influence. Others less so. And Tides funds a lot of progressive and social justice groups who would likely be surprised to know they were mere pawns of the Democratic Party money-men.
• Finally, most people are tired of celebrity driven-campaigns within the Hip Hop community.

So basically – from my arm-chair quarter-backing, three times removed perspective – there is something of a growing consensus within the community that celebrity campaigns are not the way forward. Electoral activism is regarded equally suspiciously in so much as it merely feeds the better of two evils (Democrats), but some kinds of community organzing needs to be done, whether it is for the Greens or in local elections. But, 90% of the conventions’ previous supporters are no longer in its network and are likely out there supporting Obama and working through his campaign. That seems to be regarded as a bad thing by most of the folks on the panel.

With all that in mind, I have to ask: is the Hip Hop Convention relevant anymore? Is it ready to die? And if not, how do you get it back to where it was four years ago? Like I said, I’m really not the person who should be writing this piece. I wasn’t there and I don’t know what really went on. But someone needs to be talking about this, I think. With 3,000 members organizing in their communities in 2004, the NHHPC was a potential force in electoral politics. Now it seems like it’s a bickering community missing the game as they fight amongst themselves for what is left of their membership.

If anyone who organized the National Hip Hop Political Convention, or can speak on behalf of the Hip Hop organizing community would like to respond to this post, I’m happy to give you room on the front page of the site to rebut what I’ve written or talk solutions. You can contact me here.

In case you missed it . . .

• A loophole in Ohio voting law that will allow for one-stop registration and voting this fall could be a huge boon to Obama (and young voters) in the state.
• Yesterday activists launched a campaign on Facebook against Evan Bayh as the potential VP pick called 100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh. You would already know this if you were friends with Future Majority on Facebook.
• Huckabee youth group "Huck's Army" is now recruiting for McCain.
• Future Majority friend, activist, and videographer "noneck" Noel Hidalgo was deported from China this week for filming protests in Tiananmen Square. Noel and his crew might be following me around during the DNC convention producing video for FM. Let's hope it doesn't get quite so dicey in Denver.
• Jared Polis won his primary in Colorado and will go on to become the next Democratic congressman in his district. Not only that, he is the first openly gay candidate elected to congress and he may well be one of - if not the - youngest congressman in the country. I'm proud to have had Jared as a guest in our live blog series. Congrats to him and everyone who worked on the campaign.
• I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but in the next few days, Barack Obama will announce his VP nominee via text message. This was a great idea on their part. They probably received thousands of cell phone numbers that can now be used to get out the vote in November via text.
• The New York Times has more on that in Garret Graff's op-ed about text messaging in the Presidential campaign.
• Blender asked the candidates about their favorite songs. John McCain - what happened to Usher? I thought he was your favorite artist?
• The Washington Post has the skinny on the hottest parties at the DNC.
• In Nevada, a 22 year old is running against an incumbent state Senator who has held office since 14 years before his challenger was born.
• The Wall Street Journal finally picked up on James Fowler's study of the Colbert Bump.
• Generation Vote has a put together a Youth policy platform.
• The Post Chronicle has some thoughts about what Obama's youth supporters need to do post-election day.
• Tom Friedman actually wrote a decent piece about McCain's energy policy.
• It's Getting Hot in Here explains the whole "Gang of 10" energy compromise and why it's a win for Obama.
• David Burstein of 18 in '08 explains the significance of just one vote.
• Medill reports that this may be the geekiest of all conventions.
• Wow: